Hi Arthur, Continuing the theme of the consequences of stress in females, it may also be a cause of homosexuality in male offspring.
Here's an extract from "The Spirit in the Gene" (Cornell U.P. 1999) by Reg Morrison: <<<< p 131/2 . . . Uninhibited by most of the estrous or seasonal factors that regulate reproduction rates in other mammal species, Homo sapiens seemed, until recently, to exhibit no trace of this [General Adaptive Syndrome*] . . . . That appeared to be the case until the 1970s, when the East German scientist Gunter D�rner heard of the work of Selye and others on the physiological effects of social stress in laboratory rats and mice. D�rner had already spent much of his career investigating the role hormones such as estrogen and testosterone play in the development of the fetus, particularly in determining an individual's sexual orientation. He was particularly intrigued by reports that female rats subjected to severe social stress during pregnancy tended to produce male offspring that were attracted only to other male rats. Since he alredy knew that high stress levels experienced during pregnancy resulted in lower levels of male hormones in the womb, he decided to survey that section of the German population that had been born during and just after World War II to see if he could detect statistical evidence of the link between stress and sexuality in society at large. >From the 800 homosexuals questioned in the survey D�rner was able to determine that the homosexual birthrate (i.e. the percentage of homosexuals in the overall population) had indeed fluctuated according to the level of stress suffered by women during pregnancy. More homosexuals had been born during the years of greatest social stress -- during the last months of the conflict and those immediately following the war -- than at any other time. In fact, two-thirds of the homosexual men and their mothers reported pre-birth levels of stress ranging from "moderate" to "extreme", and the stated causes included bombing, rape and extreme anxiety. By contrast only 10% of the heterosexuals in a control group reported unusual maternal stress during the pre-natal period, and the mothers of these undividuals reported only moderate pre-natal stress.** * "A Syndrome produced by diverse nocuous agents", Nature 138 (1936) p.23-26; ** Gunter D�rner, "Prenatal stress and possible aetiogenic factors of homosexuality in human males", Endokrinologie, No 75 (1980), pp365-68. >>>> Keith P.S. Much more interesting than Regulatory Agencies and Consumer Associations don't you think? But I'll return to your posting on this topic tomorrow morning with my first pot of tea. Meanwhile, I have a desperate lady in San Diego waiting for a Gabrieli motet for her choir and I must get on with this now. __________________________________________________________ �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
