6 ms·

How about Fusarium molds which are present in many foods like nuts, grains, coffee and chocolate? These Fusarium molds produce zearalenone, a potent estrogen m

How about Fusarium molds which are present in many foods like nuts, grains, coffee and chocolate? These Fusarium molds produce zearalenone, a potent estrogen mimetic which was linked to homosexual behavior and infertility in farm animals that ate Fusarium infected grains[1]. These molds can infect and become persistent in humans[2]. Sure, it's extremely controversial subject matter to even suggest this linkage, but I'll take the downvotes. [1]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/026010608700500212 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/026010608700500... [2]https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/JCM.00120-06 https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/JCM.00120-06

lordofgibbons 5y ago
Interesting, I haven't heard of this before. Aren't almost all of those nuts/grains roasted before they're consumed? That should kill off any mold spores.
- geranim0 5y ago
  Even if you kill the spores, there can be toxic compounds produced by the fungi that won't be denatured by heat and end up being consumed.
- narrator 5y ago
  There is a strong raw food movement among vegetarians.
pure_simplicity 5y ago
Very interesting! Now would it have the same effect in humans? Would be interesting. I see no reason to downvote this... weren't LGBTQ people arguing for the longest time that there is a biological causation? They may have finally found it, though it is not genetic like they hoped for. Either way it is interesting. Unfortunately it's not all too uncommon these days to simply assume (project?) bigotry and treat innocent people like crap over that assumption.
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  It's still genetic, just not human genes ;)
- VaxWithSex 5y ago
  article is from 1987
  - verisimi 5y ago
    and yet I'm hearing about it now for the first time..
- krageon 5y ago
  > Now would it have the same effect in humans? It's only studied in rats, so we basically don't know. I cannot access the original paper so I can't discern exactly how much fungus these rats were fed. Given what usually happens with such papers, it's probably an extreme amount. I wouldn't put too much credence into it.
- randomopining 5y ago
  The lowering of testosterone in the average male due to environmental and other factors definitely seems to correlate with a rise in the amount of LGBTQ. Of course society accepting them more and allowing them to come out is a big part too. No doubt that eating clean, working out, etc seem to make you feel more masculine as a guy.
sitharus 5y ago
Zearalenone is a known mycotoxin that is routinely screened for in food production, so the exposure risk for people who consume commercially produced grains is minimal. Additionally although the toxin is heat stable, the fungal spores if present are destroyed by cooking. So you’d have to consume non-heat-treated raw infected grains, and ignore the other symptoms of mycotoxin poisoning, as it’s not the only toxin Fusarium moulds produce.
- narrator 5y ago
  Fusarium is a regular component of the gut microbiome according to the study below, especially and overwhelmingly in, I kid you not, vegetarians!!! I'd imagine the raw food trend in vegetarianism would exacerbate this. I did not expect that! This rabbit hole goes extremely deep! If it gets established in the gut microbiome, it would be generating regular small amounts of zearalenone and people so infected would not experience full blown mycotoxin poisoning like say an immunocompromised person. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5411236/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5411236/ "Finally, Suhr and colleagues examined 16 [fecal] samples from 15 vegetarians, while Hallen-Adams et al. used the same methodology in the same laboratory to isolate and sequence fungal DNA from 69 samples from 45 people on a conventional Western diet.22,23 The distribution of fungi differed considerably between the 2 groups (Table 2). Plant pathogenic Fusarium was detected in all but 2 samples from vegetarians (14 samples; 88%), while it was only detected in 2 samples from participants on conventional diets (3%). Malassezia and (presumed) foodborne Penicillium and Aspergillus were also present in more than 50% of vegetarian samples but much rarer in conventional diet samples. "
willis936 5y ago
The rate of homosexuality is relatively constant with time and location. I doubt the same is true for that specific fungus. The gay uncle hypothesis is more compelling.
- jansan 5y ago
  THat is a bold claim. The share of people in the US identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender has risen from 3.5% in 2012 to 5.6% in 2020. Not very constant if you ask me. Sauce: https://www.statista.com/statistics/719674/american-adults-who-identify-as-homosexual-bisexual-or-transgender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/719674/american-adults-w...
  - notahacker 5y ago
    I think this growth is more plausibly explained by changes in public tolerance of homosexuality making people more comfortable declaring something than a commensurate increase in mould in food...
    - robbedpeter 5y ago
      People can also choose for themselves within the constraints of their biological predilection. Society becoming tolerant then becomes subject to sexuality fads, and the percentage of people is identifying openly with sexuality of any stripe will fluctuate around a baseline. The percentage of people who are genetically, intrinsically, unchangeably bound to a particular identity will reveal itself over time so long as culture remains tolerant. To correct for fads and fashion, we'll probably need a few centuries. Absent sufficient data, confounding factors will make any assertions about external factors affecting sexuality impossible to falsify. We'll have reverse engineered the brain, and genetic influence on behavior and personality, long before we've collected enough data to empirically correlate sexuality accurately enough to validate hypotheses like "mold is making people hay."
    - b112 5y ago
      Thing is, we literally have no idea. There was the "hide this" aspect, truly and surely. But we have never, even today, had an accurate, truthful rendering of numbers. So the numbers could have risen, fallen, been the same. One thing I will say, stating it's always been the same over all human history seems flawed. Even if it's genetic, genes change in populations over time.
Trouble_007 5y ago
I'm guessing your premise is that Estrogen or Estrogen mimicking food in the diet is the cause of homosexual? search: 'estrogen mimetic foods' @DDG : <https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q='estrogen mimetic foods' https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q='estrogen mimetic foods'> If so, will you kindly explain 'gay Penguins' search: 'gay penguins' @DDG : <https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q='gay penguins' https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q='gay penguins'>
- jonnybgood 5y ago
  > I'm guessing your premise is that Estrogen or Estrogen mimicking food in the diet is the cause of homosexual? No that’s not their premise and that’s not what’s being said.
  - Trouble_007 5y ago
    Hmm... From the poster 'narrator' : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31106210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31106210 >a potent estrogen mimetic which was linked to homosexual behavior< Did you read this?
    - short_sells_poo 5y ago
      Stop twisting the parents words to fit your narrative. They didn't claim that the mycotoxin is the sole cause of homosexuality, just that it may be a cause. There can be a myriad other causes, and this particular link is also not certain.
      - Trouble_007 5y ago
        My first post : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31107367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31107367 Was in reply to 'narrator' : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31106210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31106210 The context tree has been changed by the Mods, moving my first post to : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31107427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31107427 No 'Twisting' on my part.
mungal 5y ago
The spurious "I'm just asking questions..." style rhetoric and a link to an embarrassing study leaves me unsure why this is the top comment on an article about gut microbiome? The first study, the one which _narrator_ attempts to use to 'suggest ... linkage', between this fungus and 'homosexual behaviour' seems embarrassingly unworthy of being brought to people's attention. Is this comment intentionally made in bad faith? The linked abstract fails to acknowledge the study covered 12 male and 8 female rabbits, or let on that the article itself is roughly a page and a half of prose nearly completely devoid of data and analysis. Your SageHub link only provides the abstract, but does say two of the authors only ever authored one other article, which they again share, and the third author has only ever authored this one article. Google Scholar[0] has both a link to the article[1] which is from 1987(!) and labels it as having only 3(!) citations. Of the 3 citations, two are in German and so I am unable to speak on their contents, but each only have 1(!) subsequent citation. The third[2] has 29 citations, which is a 300 page survey of "Advances in Rabbit Sciences", and only briefly references the effects of infertility on the female rabbits, completely ignoring the 'homesexuality linkage' claims, and uses the very soft language of 'possibly': > Feeding female rabbits with mycelium from Fusarium roseum produces infertility, possibly due to contamination with the mycotoxin zearalenon, which has effects similar to those of estrogen (Nilsson et al., 1987). [0] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C7&q=The+Effect+of+Fungal+Toxins+on+the+Sexual+Behaviour+of+Rabbits&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C7&q=The+... [1] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.964.7325&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.96... [2] https://air.unimi.it/retrieve/handle/2434/688722/1344505/Cost848.pdf https://air.unimi.it/retrieve/handle/2434/688722/1344505/Cos...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Karawebnetwork 5y ago
This comes with the assumption that oestrogen variations in humans will affect their sexuality. Being very active in the international trans community, I have witnessed humans with a wide array of oestrogens level and testosterone level. For example, I know of trans women who maintain a pregnancy level of oestradiol, others who maintain themselves at post menopausal levels and some who do not take oestradiol at all. Having an analytic mind and access to a huge population, I am always on the lookout for patterns. This is anecdotal but I have not noticed any pattern or relationship between sex hormone level and sexuality. What I did notice is a relationship between libido and sex hormone levels. To me, that's what this study noticed in animals. I doubt this applies in humans. Contrary to animals, having a high libido will not mean that you will start sexual intercourse with every single mammal you can reach. There is a difference between animals having same sex intercourse and homosexuality in humans.

lordofgibbons 5y ago

Interesting, I haven't heard of this before. Aren't almost all of those nuts/grains roasted before they're consumed? That should kill off any mold spores.

geranim0 5y ago
Even if you kill the spores, there can be toxic compounds produced by the fungi that won't be denatured by heat and end up being consumed.
narrator 5y ago
There is a strong raw food movement among vegetarians.

pure_simplicity 5y ago

Very interesting! Now would it have the same effect in humans? Would be interesting. I see no reason to downvote this... weren't LGBTQ people arguing for the longest time that there is a biological causation? They may have finally found it, though it is not genetic like they hoped for. Either way it is interesting. Unfortunately it's not all too uncommon these days to simply assume (project?) bigotry and treat innocent people like crap over that assumption.

rhn_mk1 5y ago
It's still genetic, just not human genes ;)
VaxWithSex 5y ago
article is from 1987
- verisimi 5y ago
  and yet I'm hearing about it now for the first time..
krageon 5y ago
> Now would it have the same effect in humans? It's only studied in rats, so we basically don't know. I cannot access the original paper so I can't discern exactly how much fungus these rats were fed. Given what usually happens with such papers, it's probably an extreme amount. I wouldn't put too much credence into it.
randomopining 5y ago
The lowering of testosterone in the average male due to environmental and other factors definitely seems to correlate with a rise in the amount of LGBTQ. Of course society accepting them more and allowing them to come out is a big part too. No doubt that eating clean, working out, etc seem to make you feel more masculine as a guy.

sitharus 5y ago

Zearalenone is a known mycotoxin that is routinely screened for in food production, so the exposure risk for people who consume commercially produced grains is minimal. Additionally although the toxin is heat stable, the fungal spores if present are destroyed by cooking. So you’d have to consume non-heat-treated raw infected grains, and ignore the other symptoms of mycotoxin poisoning, as it’s not the only toxin Fusarium moulds produce.

narrator 5y ago
Fusarium is a regular component of the gut microbiome according to the study below, especially and overwhelmingly in, I kid you not, vegetarians!!! I'd imagine the raw food trend in vegetarianism would exacerbate this. I did not expect that! This rabbit hole goes extremely deep! If it gets established in the gut microbiome, it would be generating regular small amounts of zearalenone and people so infected would not experience full blown mycotoxin poisoning like say an immunocompromised person. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5411236/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5411236/ "Finally, Suhr and colleagues examined 16 [fecal] samples from 15 vegetarians, while Hallen-Adams et al. used the same methodology in the same laboratory to isolate and sequence fungal DNA from 69 samples from 45 people on a conventional Western diet.22,23 The distribution of fungi differed considerably between the 2 groups (Table 2). Plant pathogenic Fusarium was detected in all but 2 samples from vegetarians (14 samples; 88%), while it was only detected in 2 samples from participants on conventional diets (3%). Malassezia and (presumed) foodborne Penicillium and Aspergillus were also present in more than 50% of vegetarian samples but much rarer in conventional diet samples. "

willis936 5y ago

The rate of homosexuality is relatively constant with time and location. I doubt the same is true for that specific fungus. The gay uncle hypothesis is more compelling.

jansan 5y ago
THat is a bold claim. The share of people in the US identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender has risen from 3.5% in 2012 to 5.6% in 2020. Not very constant if you ask me. Sauce: https://www.statista.com/statistics/719674/american-adults-who-identify-as-homosexual-bisexual-or-transgender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/719674/american-adults-w...
- notahacker 5y ago
  I think this growth is more plausibly explained by changes in public tolerance of homosexuality making people more comfortable declaring something than a commensurate increase in mould in food...
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    People can also choose for themselves within the constraints of their biological predilection. Society becoming tolerant then becomes subject to sexuality fads, and the percentage of people is identifying openly with sexuality of any stripe will fluctuate around a baseline. The percentage of people who are genetically, intrinsically, unchangeably bound to a particular identity will reveal itself over time so long as culture remains tolerant. To correct for fads and fashion, we'll probably need a few centuries. Absent sufficient data, confounding factors will make any assertions about external factors affecting sexuality impossible to falsify. We'll have reverse engineered the brain, and genetic influence on behavior and personality, long before we've collected enough data to empirically correlate sexuality accurately enough to validate hypotheses like "mold is making people hay."
  - b112 5y ago
    Thing is, we literally have no idea. There was the "hide this" aspect, truly and surely. But we have never, even today, had an accurate, truthful rendering of numbers. So the numbers could have risen, fallen, been the same. One thing I will say, stating it's always been the same over all human history seems flawed. Even if it's genetic, genes change in populations over time.

Trouble_007 5y ago

I'm guessing your premise is that Estrogen or Estrogen mimicking food in the diet is the cause of homosexual? search: 'estrogen mimetic foods' @DDG : <https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q='estrogen mimetic foods' https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q='estrogen mimetic foods'> If so, will you kindly explain 'gay Penguins' search: 'gay penguins' @DDG : <https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q='gay penguins' https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q='gay penguins'>

jonnybgood 5y ago
> I'm guessing your premise is that Estrogen or Estrogen mimicking food in the diet is the cause of homosexual? No that’s not their premise and that’s not what’s being said.
- Trouble_007 5y ago
  Hmm... From the poster 'narrator' : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31106210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31106210 >a potent estrogen mimetic which was linked to homosexual behavior< Did you read this?
  - short_sells_poo 5y ago
    Stop twisting the parents words to fit your narrative. They didn't claim that the mycotoxin is the sole cause of homosexuality, just that it may be a cause. There can be a myriad other causes, and this particular link is also not certain.
    - Trouble_007 5y ago
      My first post : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31107367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31107367 Was in reply to 'narrator' : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31106210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31106210 The context tree has been changed by the Mods, moving my first post to : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31107427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31107427 No 'Twisting' on my part.

mungal 5y ago

The spurious "I'm just asking questions..." style rhetoric and a link to an embarrassing study leaves me unsure why this is the top comment on an article about gut microbiome? The first study, the one which _narrator_ attempts to use to 'suggest ... linkage', between this fungus and 'homosexual behaviour' seems embarrassingly unworthy of being brought to people's attention. Is this comment intentionally made in bad faith? The linked abstract fails to acknowledge the study covered 12 male and 8 female rabbits, or let on that the article itself is roughly a page and a half of prose nearly completely devoid of data and analysis. Your SageHub link only provides the abstract, but does say two of the authors only ever authored one other article, which they again share, and the third author has only ever authored this one article. Google Scholar[0] has both a link to the article[1] which is from 1987(!) and labels it as having only 3(!) citations. Of the 3 citations, two are in German and so I am unable to speak on their contents, but each only have 1(!) subsequent citation. The third[2] has 29 citations, which is a 300 page survey of "Advances in Rabbit Sciences", and only briefly references the effects of infertility on the female rabbits, completely ignoring the 'homesexuality linkage' claims, and uses the very soft language of 'possibly': > Feeding female rabbits with mycelium from Fusarium roseum produces infertility, possibly due to contamination with the mycotoxin zearalenon, which has effects similar to those of estrogen (Nilsson et al., 1987). [0] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C7&q=The+Effect+of+Fungal+Toxins+on+the+Sexual+Behaviour+of+Rabbits&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C7&q=The+... [1] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.964.7325&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.96... [2] https://air.unimi.it/retrieve/handle/2434/688722/1344505/Cost848.pdf https://air.unimi.it/retrieve/handle/2434/688722/1344505/Cos...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Karawebnetwork 5y ago

This comes with the assumption that oestrogen variations in humans will affect their sexuality. Being very active in the international trans community, I have witnessed humans with a wide array of oestrogens level and testosterone level. For example, I know of trans women who maintain a pregnancy level of oestradiol, others who maintain themselves at post menopausal levels and some who do not take oestradiol at all. Having an analytic mind and access to a huge population, I am always on the lookout for patterns. This is anecdotal but I have not noticed any pattern or relationship between sex hormone level and sexuality. What I did notice is a relationship between libido and sex hormone levels. To me, that's what this study noticed in animals. I doubt this applies in humans. Contrary to animals, having a high libido will not mean that you will start sexual intercourse with every single mammal you can reach. There is a difference between animals having same sex intercourse and homosexuality in humans.