Catalano RA, Saxton KB, Bruckner TA, Pearl M, Anderson E, Goldman-Mellor S, Margerison-Zilko C, Subbaraman M, Currier RJ, Kharrazi M. Hormonal evidence supports the theory of selection in utero.
Am J Hum Biol 2012;
24:526-32. [PMID:
22411168 PMCID:
PMC3372670 DOI:
10.1002/ajhb.22265]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/10/2011] [Revised: 01/10/2012] [Accepted: 02/09/2012] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVES
Antagonists in the debate over whether the maternal stress response during pregnancy damages or culls fetuses have invoked the theory of selection in utero to support opposing positions. We describe how these opposing arguments arise from the same theory and offer a novel test to discriminate between them. Our test, rooted in reports from population endocrinology that human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) signals fetal fitness, contributes not only to the debate over the fetal origins of illness, but also to the more basic literature concerned with whether and how natural selection in utero affects contemporary human populations.
METHODS
We linked maternal serum hCG measurements from prenatal screening tests with data from the California Department of Public Health birth registry for the years 2001-2007. We used time series analysis to test the association between the number of live-born male singletons and median hCG concentration among males in monthly gestational cohorts.
RESULTS
Among the 1.56 million gestations in our analysis, we find that median hCG levels among male survivors of monthly conception cohorts rise as the number of male survivors falls.
RESULTS
Elevated median hCG among relatively small male birth cohorts supports the theory of selection in utero and suggests that the maternal stress response culls cohorts in gestation by raising the fitness criterion for survival to birth.
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