Posted on 08/13/2008 9:41:31 AM PDT by Between the Lines
LIVERPOOL, United Kingdom, August 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A recent study by the University of Liverpool found that the contraceptive pill may adversely affect a woman's natural ability to choose a genetically favorable mate.
The ability to choose a genetically favorable mate is ascribed in part to pheromones, chemicals that can cause behavioral changes in the opposite sex. These chemicals also contain the genes involved in immunity response. When these genes interact with normal skin bacteria, they influence an individual's particular body odor.
Research has indicated that women tend to be more attracted to the odors of men whose genes are more unlike their own; this instinctive attraction is key in helping ensure a match that is genetically advantageous to a couple's offspring. If a couple's genes are too similar, they are at an increased risk of miscarriage and difficulty conceiving, and if they do conceive, the child may have a weakened immune system.
Yet this natural sense may be endangered by the use of oral contraceptives. The research team conducting the study asked women to indicate their preferences of six male body odors before and after initiating use of oral contraceptives.
According to Craig Roberts, a Lecturer in Evolutionary Psychology and one of the researchers in this study, women taking the pill began to prefer men with more genetically similar odors. Addressing the implications of such a disruption, he states: "Not only could [gene] similarity in couples lead to fertility problems, but it could ultimately lead to the breakdown of relationships when women stop using the contraceptive pill, as odour perception plays a significant role in maintaining attraction to partners."
These claims are not the first to question the pill's impact on hormone activity and sexuality. Dr. David Brownstein, commenting on a study linking oral contraceptives to increased arterial plaque, emphasized the precarious balance of hormones needed for good health, a balance disrupted de facto in pill users:
"Oral contraceptives totally disrupt the normal hormonal cascade. When the hormonal system is disrupted, cardiovascular disease, cancer, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and other serious illnesses will increase. My clinical experience has clearly shown that it is impossible to adequately treat these illnesses if there is an imbalanced hormonal system." (Read "Oral Contraceptives May Be Linked to Atherosclerosis" http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jul/08071202.html)
In addition to altering women's natural attraction to suitable partners, the pill also permanently damages sex drive over long-term use, according to one study (Read http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/may/05052603.html).
Hm, very interesting.
Beer, is not an Oral Contraceptive
Reminds me of “global warming” (or have they gone back to “new ice age” since I last looked?) pseudo-science.
I heard a female doctor on the G GOrdon Liddy show say the same thing 10 years ago. Maybe the research just confirmed it.
Pheremones...whodathunkit?
I thought it had to do with thinking one is “safe” for promiscuity and then acting on it.
Being multi-racial my genetics are very unique - perhaps this explains it...
We may see long term health effects in women. Some women take the pill for 10 or even 20 years.
I wonder if, when they developed the pill, they envisioned big numbers of women being on the pill for most of their reproductive lifetime.
I think what they were envisioning was $$$.
Count me a bit skeptical here. This could help explain the incest taboo (and by the same token this seems to imply a breakdown in this taboo is risked by those using this BC method). But if this were a major factor then I would expect to see inter-racial marriage is the norm rather than the exception. I suspect that insofar as this effect exists, it only 'rules out' a fairly close circle of closely-related males, while not distinguishing much between males of ones own or different ethnic groups otherwise.
Or maybe it is just women who sleep around end up with crappy mates.
While you make a good point, I believe that research has shown that the part of your genetic material that decides race is VERY small, and that you can just as easily have more genetic material in common with someone of a different race than of someone of your own race.
Actually, this explains a LOT
It was only a few decades ago that that was still taboo. But a significant percentage of the married couples at our church are inter-racial, and the vast majority of those with children at home are such.
Most people don’t know that The Pill fails to prevent ovulation some of the time and causes abortions by preventing implantations of fertilized eggs (babies).
Why be choosey about whom you sleep with? There’s all sorts of contraceptives available, and if those fail, you can always just kill the little “punishment” baby.
And, for that matter, why should families/Fathers be protective of their daughters? There’s all the above “rememdies” for her behavior choices. Besides, being protective of young women and expecting them to be the sexual gatekeepers is SO patriarchal and oppressive.
[do I need a sarc tag?]
There really are no races besides human, as your post alludes to.
Everyone on the planet has varying degrees of melanin content, due to breeding isolation of various groups of humans. (Babel)
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