British researchers say a new study shows that would-be moms who skip breakfast are more likely to have girls than boys.
英国研究者的一项新研究发现：想当妈妈的女性不吃早饭的话，将来更有可能生女孩。
Want a son? Pack on the calories. Biologist Fiona Mathews of the University of Exeter in England and her colleagues surveyed 740 first-time mothers on their pre-pregnancy eating habits and found that 56 percent of those on high-calorie diets had sons.
想要儿子吗？那就储存卡路里吧。英格兰埃克塞特大学的生物学家菲奥纳·马休斯和她的同事们通过调查740个首次做妈妈的女性孕前的饮食习惯后发现，她们中56%的女性在高卡路里饮食后生了儿子。
But it wasn't only calories that contributed; specific foods also appear to play a role, say researchers. "Prior to pregnancy, breakfast cereal, but no other item, was strongly associated with infant sex," the researchers write in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "Women producing male infants consumed more breakfast cereal than those with female infants."
但这并不仅仅是卡路里的贡献。研究者表示：“特殊的食物也发挥了作用。孕前的早餐只进食单纯的谷类食物，这将和婴儿的性别产生强烈的关联。”研究者们发表在《皇家学会学报B辑》的文章写道：“生儿子的女性要比生女儿的在早餐时需要更多的谷类食品。”
The reason is a mystery, but Mathews speculates that glucose may be key. This type of sugar, converted by the human body into energy, is a by-product of the breakdown of carbohydrates such as those in breakfast cereal. Women who do not eat breakfast tend to have low levels of glucose, and other studies have shown that glucose enhances the growth of male fetuses in vitro.
其中的原因是一个谜，不过马休斯推测：葡萄糖可能是个关键因素。早餐中的谷类食物含有碳水化合物。葡萄糖是碳水化合物的转化物之一，它为人体提供能量。不吃早饭的女性体内的葡萄糖含量往往较低，而其它体外实验也显示，葡萄糖能增强男性胎儿的成长。
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