You are what your mother eats: evidence for maternal preconception diet influencing foetal sex in humans.

ABSTRACT: Facultative adjustment of sex ratios by mothers occurs in some animals, and has been linked to resource availability. In mammals, the search for consistent patterns is complicated by variations in mating systems, social hierarchies and litter sizes. Humans have low fecundity, high maternal investment and a potentially high differential between the numbers of offspring produced by sons and daughters: these conditions should favour the evolution of facultative sex ratio variation. Yet little is known of natural mechanisms of sex allocation in humans. Here, using data from 740 British women who were unaware of their foetus's gender, we show that foetal sex is associated with maternal diet at conception. Fifty six per cent of women in the highest third of preconceptional energy intake bore boy

SUBMITTER: Mathews F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2602810 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature