You are what your mother eats

Multiple news sources reported a study that suggests high-calorie diet and regular breakfasts during pregnancy might increase the odds of a boy.

Scientists asked 740 women who had become pregnant for the first time about their eating habbits in the year before they conceived and found that 59% of women who ate breakfast cereal every day had boys.

Critics warned that women should be extremely cautious about using diet to influence the baby's gender and that changing diet could have other health implications for mothers and children.

Source: "You are what your mother eats: evidence for maternal preconception diet influencing foetal sex in humans" Proceedings of the Royal Society B: biological sciences. April 22, 2008

Aspirin - men's drug?

Aspirin has been linked to many health benefits, but a study which analysed 23 previously published clinical trials for the effect of aspirin in heart attack prevention, involving more than 113,000 patients found that women may be less responsive to aspirin than men for heart protection.


The researchers believe that gender may be one of the main influences on aspirin's protective powers. One UK expert said the finding is "potentially misleading" and that "taking aspirin in the months and years after a heart attack delivered equal benefits to men and women".


Source: "The influence of gender on the effects of aspirin in preventing myocardial infarction"
BMC Medicine 2007, 5:29 ( This is an open access journal article with full text )

Ethnicity & gender on MRCP exams pass rates

A research, undertaken by MRCP in collaboration with UCL, was published in the journal of BMC Medicine, looking at the "effects of ethnicity and gender of UK medical graduates on MRCP exam pass rates during 2003-04".

The researchers found :
In all three parts of the MRCP examination, white candidates performed better than other ethnic groups.

In Part 1 and Part 2 Written Examinations, gender did not make a significant difference.

In the Part 2 Clinical Examination, women performed better than men did. White candidates had a much higher pass rate than non-white candidates and non-white males were least successful, the poor performance was most marked in the communications and ethics assessments.

There was no evidence of the gender of the examiners that made significant difference, however, there was improved performance in communications and ethics of non-white candidates examined by 2 non-white examines.