Diet determines gender? Read on...

As some of you may know, I get all of my worldly news from the Yahoo! front page. If it's not on there I might not know about it....

Having said that I woke up this morning and found the following title, "Mother's diet can help determine sex of child: study"

I have been saying for years that there is a trend towards female babies but my friends and fellow doctors thought I was crazy. This study looked at 740 women in Britain who did not know the sex of their unborn baby and asked them details about their diet.

What they found is very cool!

*Fifty-six percent of the women in the group with the highest energy intake had sons, compared to 45 percent in the least-well fed cohort.

*Beside racking up a higher calorie count, the group who produced more males were also more likely to have eaten a wider range of nutrients, including potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12.

*The odds of an XY, or male outcome to a pregnancy also went up sharply "for women who consumed at least one bowl of breakfast cereal daily compared with those who ate less than or equal to one bowl of week," the study reported.

They report that previous research has shown -- despite the rising epidemic in obesity -- a reduction in the average energy uptake in advanced economies. The number of adults who skip breakfast has also increased substantially.

They say this is a built-in evolutionary mechanism...because women traditionally can handle the tougher times and can still reproduce then female babies are more commonly born.

The author says, if a mother has plentiful resources, then it can make sense to invest in producing a son because he is likely to produce more grandchildren than would a daughter, thus contributing to the survival of the species.

What does this mean?

It means that your diet will 'potentially' influence the gender of your baby. It means, while you are trying to become pregnant to eat a healthy diet, do not skip breakfast, avoid alcohol, smoking and coffee completely and take care of your body!

It means that if you take care of yourself through your diet then evolution recognizes that you are healthy...and that is ultimately what you want to be.