Comment by tomhoward | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomhoward | Hacker News Reader

Which do we think is more likely?

a) Choosing to eat too much junk food causes hormone imbalances that increase the chance of infertility;

b) Hormone imbalances that increase the risk of infertility in women also tend to increase one's appetite for junk (AKA high-energy) foods.

Having witnessed these problems up close, I'm going with (b).

FWIW the actual substance of the article is this paragraph:

Roughly 1 in 10 women of childbearing age have difficulty getting pregnant. Most of the time, it’s caused by problems with ovulation, often related to a hormone imbalance known as polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). Some signs that a woman is not ovulating normally include irregular or absent menstrual periods.

PCOS and other fertility-related hormonal issues are much more complex and deeply rooted than food choices, though they're not unrelated.

The real issue is inflammation and auto-immunity, in which food intake is a factor but only one piece of the puzzle.

The hormone speculation seems to come from the article itself, rather than the authors of the paper. In fact, you could be forgiven for reading the article and not finding anything of interest - no causal link, no mention of controlling for weight (already known to have an effect and very likely correlated with fast food consumption).

However, the paper says:

"All models are adjusted for maternal BMI, maternal age, socioeconomic index, recruitment site, ethnicity, polycystic ovary syndrome, previous miscarriage, smoking status, alcohol intake, multivitamin use prior to conception, frequency of sexual intercourse, paternal BMI, paternal age."

Having controlled for BMI & alcohol at least makes it somewhat interesting, despite the need for patient recall.

I would go with C, a bit of both, a circular reference if you like.

Why not both though?

Ultimately, it is a runaway homeostasis, a vicious circle.

We have only moderate evidence that dietary advice to stop eating highly energy dense nutrient poor foods is effective...

Soft tacos or hard shell tacos? Why not both!

I wonder if fast food is to blame for hormone imbalances in men as well, especially the problem of lower testosterone for westerners. Maybe not directly but due to the obesity excessive fast food calorie consumption causes?

I recommend 4chan for their advice, they are convinced it's soy and that eating raw onions is the solution. (Don't take that or anything else on 4chan too seriously though).

Correlation is not cause.

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