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Nigeria's twin town ponders cause of multiple births
- jelliclesfarm 6y agohttps://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/whats-in-a-yam-clues-to-fertility-a/ https://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/whats-... : White yams, a staple of the diet of the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria, may play a role in the society’s high incidence of fraternal twinning, according to a student’s research. “You see families consuming yams three or four times a day,” said Obinwanne Ugwonali, M.D. ’99, whose thesis on the link between yams and fertility was one of five to garner awards this year on Student Research Day. “I think this project will lead us to understanding more about the mechanisms of the human reproductive system, specifically the reason why we are typically monotocous rather than polytocous like other animals,” he said. Ugwonali’s adviser, Frederick Naftolin, M.D., professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology, said the research is the cornerstone of a group of related studies of yam intake and genetic predisposition to multiple births now under way at Yale and Harvard and in Nigeria. In addition to the biological and anthropological aspects, the study has medical applications, Naftolin said. “We don’t know why normally monotocous women become polytocous, but multiple pregnancy is the most common cause of prematurity, which is the major cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality,” he said.[..]