Diets by Gender
Reported July 21, 2008
(Ivanhoe Newswire) A new study from Australia shows gender plays a major role in determining which foods help us live longer and give us a better chance of having children.
Researchers are doing long-term studies on Australian black field crickets. They discovered the lifespan of both males and females is maximized on high-carbohydrate, low-protein diets.
But how well they’re able to reproduce differs dramatically between the sexes when the balance of carbohydrates and proteins is changed. Results show males live longest and have the greatest reproductive success with a diet when the carb to protein ration is eight-to-one. But females do best when it is just one-to-one. When they’re given a choice, females eat only a small amount more protein than males.
“Male and female crickets maximize their fitness on different diets, lead author, Dr. Alexei Maklakov, University of New South Wales, was quoted as saying. “Despite that, the dietary preferences of the sexes are very similar. Instead of selecting foods in a sex-specific manner, males and females select ‘intermediate’ diets that are less than optimal for both sexes.”
So what’s the significance of the findings for humans?
“Men and women invest differently in reproduction, a difference that is even more marked than that between male and female crickets,” Associate Professor, Rob Brooks, University of New South Wales, was quoted as saying. “Think of the tremendous amounts of energy and protein required of a mother in carrying a baby to term and breastfeeding. We also know that men and women need to eat different diets – think of the careful attention we pay to what expectant mothers eat.”
SOURCE: Current Biology, 2008