A study has revealed that women who eat beef regularly during pregnancy are more likely to produce sperm-deprived sons.
The report, which was published Wednesday in the United States, came after Copenhagen University researchers concluded that sperm counts in boys have been falling since about 10 years ago and exposure to pesticides and industrial chemicals are thought to be a part of the problem, Britain’s Telegraph reported.
One of the most likely candidates for the low sperm count are the “gender- bender” chemicals that act like the human sex hormones and are used to stimulate growth in cattle.
The study was done using men living in the Unites States who were born between 1949 and 1983. The study proved that the mothers who ate more than seven beef meals a week produced children with a sperm concentration of more than 24 percent lower than in men whose mothers ate less beef.
Professor Shanna Swan, head of the study published in the journal Human Reproduction, said: “These findings suggest that maternal beef consumption is associated with lower sperm concentration and possible sub-fertility, associations that may be related to the presence of anabolic steroids and other xenobiotics (foreign chemicals) in beef.”
or maybe if mom was likelier to eat beef, she was less willing to take shit from you and now you are a pussy. quite frankly with all the possible variables and lack of testing them on top of the fact that they asked women to recall what they had eaten decades before…
oh hell, i’m not even going to bother. why is it every time someone releases a bad correlational study it gets attention when it is obvious that scientists are looking at two data sets and coming up with a coefficient AND NOT COMPARING IT TO ANYTHING.
i’m almost sure if i had handed something like this in in high school, it would have been thrown back at me with instructions to hand it in when i have more than a hypothesis, like perhaps supporting data and some control for other variables (something tells me they exist).
this reminds me of all the studies they used to ‘prove’ that fat was the problem in the diet while overlooking the ever more processed grains.
I don’t think anyone thinks this is a good methodology or even a solid conclusion. “So…you’d say you ate beef like, what?, nine times a week?”
“Sure.”
But what’s clear is that the larger demographics of phenotypical effects of these things in the environment are gathering attention - be it soy or beef (and those are increasingly similar things, as we know). Whatever’s causing it, it seems to be happening. But the foolproof methodology to determine cause and effect hasn’t been invented yet - it’s a bit like asking them what causes global warming. “Must have been Aunt Sue that time she left the oven on for two days.” Thus the great methodological hamstring of anthropology: you have to rely on natives to figure out what they’re thinking, and chances are they’re no better at knowing what’s in the black box than you are.
Reminds me of the scene in Fargo - “and you slept with the funny looking one?”
[quote]ubl0 wrote:
or maybe if mom was likelier to eat beef, she was less willing to take shit from you and now you are a pussy. quite frankly with all the possible variables and lack of testing them on top of the fact that they asked women to recall what they had eaten decades before…
oh hell, i’m not even going to bother. why is it every time someone releases a bad correlational study it gets attention when it is obvious that scientists are looking at two data sets and coming up with a coefficient AND NOT COMPARING IT TO ANYTHING.
i’m almost sure if i had handed something like this in in high school, it would have been thrown back at me with instructions to hand it in when i have more than a hypothesis, like perhaps supporting data and some control for other variables (something tells me they exist).
[/quote]
You got all of that from the little blurb about the study posted above? You must have sort of inside knowledge about the study or else you’re reaching.