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135,000 Fewer White Males Born During Past 30 Years. The number of male babies born in the U.S. is
dropping and has been on a steady decline for the last three decades,
according to a new study.Researchers found the decline in male births is equivalent to 135,000
fewer white males in the last 30 years in the U.S.They say the reason
for the decrease is unclear, but environmental
factors coupled with the rising age of parents giving birth may be
playing a role.
We know that men who work with some solvents, metals, and pesticides
father fewer baby boys. We also know that nutritional factors, physical
health, and chemical exposures of pregnant women affect their ability
to have children and the health of their offspring, says Devra Lee
Davis, PhD, MPH, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer
Institutes Center for Environmental Oncology, in a news release. We
suspect that some combination of these factors, along with older age of
parents, may account for decreasing male births.
In the study, researchers analyzed birth statistics in the U.S. from
1970 to 2002 and in Japan from 1970 to 1999. The results appear in the
online edition of Environmental Health Perspectives. The results showed an overall decline of 17 males per 10,000 births in
the U.S. and 37 males per 10,000 births in Japan during the study
period. But the decline was only evident among white males in the U.S.
and not among blacks. Researchers found the number of black male births has increased slowly
over the last three decades, but the ratio of male-to-female births
among blacks remains lower than that of whites. In addition, blacks
have a higher fetal mortality rate, and male black babies are more
likely to die than females. Given the higher mortality rates for African-American males in the
United States, these results re-emphasize the need to determine all
factors, including environmental contaminants, which are responsible
for this continuing health disparity, researcher Lovell A. Jones, PhD,
director of the Center for Research on Minority Health at the
University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, says in the release.
SOURCES: Davis, D. Environmental Health Perspectives, April, 9 2007.
News release, University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences.
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