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Want twins? Eat dairy products

Want twins? Take milk and eat dairy products, a new study says. The rate of twin births in the United States rose by more than 75 per cent.

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NEW YORK: Want twins? Take milk and eat dairy products, a new study says. The rate of twin births in the United States rose by more than 75 per cent between 1980 and 2003.

Some of this can be explained by the use of fertility treatments, which ups the risk of multiple births. But that can't explain the entire jump, researchers said.

Bearing twins is more risky for both mother and child than having a single baby. So scientists wanted to know what's causing the rise.

Gary Steinman of the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York carried out a simple comparison: he gathered together childbearing records for more than 1,000 vegan women who do not eat any animal products. He calculated that vegans were around five times less likely to bear twins than omnivorous women or vegetarians who eat dairy food, Nature magazine said.

In his study published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, Steinman suggests that the difference in the rate of twin production boils down to the difference in diet. He suggests that animal-product foodstuffs, in particular dairy foods, could boost the production of a protein called insulin-like growth factor (IGF) in women.

This could promote the release of eggs by the ovary, so that two are more likely to be fertilized at the same time.

There has been an increased use of growth hormones in dairy cows, he says, which may have had an impact on this.  Although the study is preliminary, Steinman points to other evidence to back up his idea.

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