"Morning Sickness May Protect Mother and Child"
Since the beginning of time, pregnant women have been known to suffer
nausea and vomiting during pregnancy.
The term "morning sickness" is actually misleading,
since women can feel sick all day long.
And sometimes it can get so serious women have to be hospitalized.
Researchers at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital found that
saturated fat seemed to be a primary dietary risk factor for severe sickness.
Five times the odds for each 15 grams intake of saturated fat,
like a quarter-pound cheeseburger's worth.
The reason saturated fat intake may be such a strong risk factor
could be through its effects on estrogen,
as saturated fat has been shown to increase circulating levels of estrogen.
Why would we evolve to have such a negative reaction to saturated fat?
Why would we evolve to get sick at all?
Pregnancy sickness is a universal phenomenon,
with nausea or vomiting affecting 70% to 85% of all pregnant women.
If you include food aversions in the definition,
then the incidence is more like 100%.
Because pregnancy sickness is such a common phenomenon,
one must question why this is so?
Is there a purpose for such a potentially devastating condition?
Well, in the past, pregnancy sickness was dismissed as all just in women's heads,
but recent studies have reconsidered pregnancy sickness
as an embryo-protective mechanism,
an evolutionary adaptation to protect the baby.
Protect the baby from what?
Maybe from meat.
Meat is the principal source of pathogens for humans.
Meat is also the most common type of food avoided by pregnant women.
So the development of an aversion to meat during pregnancy
could be protective, as meat may have toxins that are mutagenic, carcinogenic,
and teratogenic, meaning birth defect-causing.
Tainted meat may also be contaminated by pathogens,
and pregnancy is a time of relative immunosuppression.
Normally we can fend off most meat pathogens,
however, by design, pregnant women are immunosuppressed to not reject
the developing embryo, since half the baby— from the father's side—is foreign.
So maybe morning sickness evolved as a way to get us to stay away from meat
during this vulnerable time.
This would be consistent with a profound overrepresentation of taboos
against meat eating during pregnancy in sample societies around the world.
If this theory is true, then we should be able to make five predictions.
If nausea and vomiting in pregnancy is there to be protective,
then women who have it should have better pregnancy outcomes.
And indeed, women who experience nausea and vomiting
are significantly less likely to miscarry or suffer a stillbirth.
Prediction # 2 would be that the triggering foods contain things
that can be particularly harmful to the baby.
And indeed, of all food types, animal protein
(including meat, poultry, eggs, and seafood) is the most dangerous.
Meat is the source of a wide range of pathogens
that pose a grave threat to pregnant women and their developing babies.
Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy should also coincide
with when the embryo is most vulnerable.
That's between like weeks 5 and 15 when all the critical organ structures
are being formed, which is right when nausea and vomiting is peaking,
which is right when pregnant women
find meats, fish, poultry, and eggs most aversive.
And finally, if this theory is true, one would expect a lower frequency
of morning sickness among plant-based populations.
And yes, the few societies where you don't see such morning sickness problems
are the ones that tend to have only plants as dietary staples rather than meat.