Friday, May 10, 2002

Boy Babies Lead to Mom's Early Death

Yes, it is only one study and it centers on an obscure people in the frozen north, but the results sure are interesting.

Especially with that Hallmark created corporate cash cow -- aka Mother's Day -- just around the corner.

Here is the punch line up front:

A son takes an average of 34 weeks off his mother's life span.

That is about eight months -- not an insignificant chunk of life.

If this is true, having three sons has cost my mom 102 weeks.

Wow. Just a little shy of two full years.

If you rats known as my brothers are reading this -- you better be extra nice to the mom.

As a daughter, having me -- on the other hand -- added a small amount of time to mom's life.

Unfortunately the journal publishing this study-- Science -- is fascist and does not allow free access to their web site.

So I cannot plagiarize primary material.

Here instead are the relevant bits from ABC's report:

Each son takes an average of 34 weeks off a woman's life span, evolutionary biologist Samuli Helle and colleagues at the University of Turku found.

"Our results suggest that giving birth to sons had a higher relative long-term survival cost for mothers than giving birth to and raising daughters," they wrote.

There could be biological reasons for this. Studies show boys are physiologically more demanding to produce -- they grow bigger and faster in the womb, and some studies show it takes a woman longer to get pregnant again after having a son than after having a daughter.

Testosterone produced by the fetus could suppress the mother's immune system and perhaps make her more susceptible to disease, Helle's team wrote, citing recent studies that have shown that.

If you click over and check out Helle, the University is listing him as a grad student. A cute one at that.

These results about sons are especially interesting if thought of in conjunction with the hermaphrodite frog and smoking leading to daughters phenomena.

Mother Nature sure is quirky.

Click here for the ABC report.

posted by Bohica at 10:05 AM