HopingWishingPraying
May 24th, 2012, 11:23 AM
http://cid.bcrp.gob.pe/biblio/Papers/NBER/2008/octubre/w14428.pdf
I find it a very confusing paper, the statistics and methods used are very intricate and scientific... at places they are mentioning a 6% reduction in male births, at other places a 25% reduction or an 18% reduction. I am not really sure what statistic to take out of it, but it does definitely show that fasting leads to a lowered rate of male births. They mention a study by Matthews that showed a decrease in male birth, I suspect this may be the Oxford study as they say that 133 foods were studied and only breakfast cereal was shown to be positively correlated with more male births. They hypothesize it is all to do with glucose levels, and that breakfast eating (in the Matthews study) increased glucose levels.
They also mention at some point that many days of fasting had a cumulative reduction on reducing the blood glucose of pregnant women... ie the more days they had fasted the lower their blood sugars are.
I am a little bit concerned by some of the health implications mentioned for foetuses. Most of it is talking about negative implications of fasting whilst pregnant (not before pregnant) but it does mention in small print as a footnote at one point that fasting at 3 - 4 weeks of pregnancy (ie before we find out we are pregnant, whilst we are in 2ww and trying to keep blood sugars low) can possibly harm the neural development of an embryo.
AS - I have been meaning to ask for ages - do you have any sort of hypothesis as to HOW MUCH you think the LE and low blood sugars etc could be likely to sway our outcomes? I get very down when I see stats reported in some studies such that it sways gender ratios but by small amounts such as 6% etc. Its a lot of work for a measly 6%. Do you believe that what we are doing could sway our chances by as much as 25% or more? Or is there just no way to really say?
I find it a very confusing paper, the statistics and methods used are very intricate and scientific... at places they are mentioning a 6% reduction in male births, at other places a 25% reduction or an 18% reduction. I am not really sure what statistic to take out of it, but it does definitely show that fasting leads to a lowered rate of male births. They mention a study by Matthews that showed a decrease in male birth, I suspect this may be the Oxford study as they say that 133 foods were studied and only breakfast cereal was shown to be positively correlated with more male births. They hypothesize it is all to do with glucose levels, and that breakfast eating (in the Matthews study) increased glucose levels.
They also mention at some point that many days of fasting had a cumulative reduction on reducing the blood glucose of pregnant women... ie the more days they had fasted the lower their blood sugars are.
I am a little bit concerned by some of the health implications mentioned for foetuses. Most of it is talking about negative implications of fasting whilst pregnant (not before pregnant) but it does mention in small print as a footnote at one point that fasting at 3 - 4 weeks of pregnancy (ie before we find out we are pregnant, whilst we are in 2ww and trying to keep blood sugars low) can possibly harm the neural development of an embryo.
AS - I have been meaning to ask for ages - do you have any sort of hypothesis as to HOW MUCH you think the LE and low blood sugars etc could be likely to sway our outcomes? I get very down when I see stats reported in some studies such that it sways gender ratios but by small amounts such as 6% etc. Its a lot of work for a measly 6%. Do you believe that what we are doing could sway our chances by as much as 25% or more? Or is there just no way to really say?