[KuddleyGal]

Nigeria's 'land of twins' baffles fertility experts by Joel Olatunde AgoiMon Nov 12, 1:00 AM ET


Igbo-Ora, a sleepy farming community in southwest Nigeria, welcomes visitors with a sign proclaiming "The Land of Twins".
"There is hardly a family here without a set of twins," said community leader Olayide Akinyemi, a 71-year-old father of 12, as he settled a dispute between two neighbours.
"My father had 10 sets, while I had three sets. But only one set, a male and a female, survived," he said.
The town's high incidence of twins has baffled fertility experts -- underscoring a more regional twin trend and an array of elaborate African rituals around them.
The rate of identical twins is pretty steady throughout the world at about 0.5 percent of all births, according to a 1995 study by Belgian researcher Fernand Leroy, who has worked extensively on twins.
But West Africa bucks that trend, particularly with a much higher incidence of fraternal, or non-identical twins than in Europe or Japan. That is especially true, experts say, amongst Nigeria's Yoruba community which is largely concentrated in the southwestern part of the country where Igbo-Ora is located.
Overall, almost 5 percent of all Yoruba births produce twins, the Belgian study said, compared with just around 1.2 percent for Western Europe and 0.8 percent for Japan -- although fertility drugs in the developed world are changing those figures.
Yam consumption may be one explanation for Africa's largesse, some West Africans and Western experts believe. Yams contain a natural hormone phytoestrogen which may stimulate the ovaries to produce an egg from each side.
For their part, Igbo-Ora's residents appear nonplussed about their twin phenomenon.
Some like Akinyemi support the yam theory -- and point specifically to the reputedly high oestrogen content of agida, the local name for yam tubers.
"We eat a lot of okro leaf or Ilasa soup. We also consume a lot of agida. This diet influences multiple births," he said.
Others are not so sure.
"The real cause of the phenomenon has not been medically found," said Akin Odukogbe, a senior consultant gynaecologist with the University Teaching Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, the nearest big town.
"But people attribute the development to diet," he continued, adding that studies have shown that yam can make women produce more than one egg which can be fertilised.
Chief nursing officer at the hospital Muyibi Yomi, who records a monthly average of five twins for every 100 births, puts it all down to genetics.
"If a family has a history of multiple births, this will continue from generation to generation," she said.
That should be good news for Yorubaland, where twins are regarded as a special gift from God and bearers of good luck, Akinyemi said.

"Twins are treated with affection, love and respect. Their birth is a good omen," he said.
But while many African cultures see twins as blessed, they often believe twins also have divine powers and the ability to harm those who cause them displeasure.
In pre-colonial times some communities used to kill twins and occasionally their mothers, believing a double birth was an evil portent and that the mother must have been with two men to bear two children at once. A Scottish missionary is credited with ending this practice.
In Yorubaland and indeed in large swathes of sub-Saharan Africa, twins are also believed to possess one soul between them. This belief accounts for a whole series of distinctive, and in some cases macabre rituals that are often country specific.
If one twin dies in a Yoruba family, the parents order a wooden figure called an "ibeji" to be carved, to take the place of the dead twin. The half soul of the deceased twin is thought to live on in the ibeji figure -- which is clothed, "fed" and carried by a mother exactly in the same way as the living twin.
When living twins reach maturity they take responsibility for the ibejis' care.
Meanwhile, a twin who dies in Malawi is buried with a piece of clothing belonging to the surviving sibling.
But when a twin dies in South Africa, the surviving twin is made to lie face down on his sibling's coffin the night before the burial, to mourn his death and say goodbye properly.
Another variant has the surviving twin being made to lie face up in the freshly dug grave the day before his sibling is buried. If not, communities fear the surviving twin will pine so much for his dead sibling that he will also die.
Amongst the Yoruba -- one of Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups who are also present in Benin, Ghana and Togo -- a mother who loses both twins will take part periodically in ritual ceremonies where she dances with both ibeji figures, either one in each hand, or both tucked into her shirt.
Anthropologists say the elaborate rituals surrounding twins go back to the days when perinatal mortality was very high for twins -- the increased chances of premature delivery compounding the problem of inadequate healthcare in traditional societies. The rituals were destined to help communities come to terms with the loss of the babies.

[jenedens6102]

I read an article a while back that said yams/sweet potatoes act as a natural clomid. I haven't heard of anyone who has tried this to find out if it works or not. I've never had yams/sweet potatoes so I guess I sure don't know!

[MrsBiff]

if this is true, maybe i should add yams to my diet...

i could try eating them, just to see if it works. i mean, if it is true, thats a whole lot cheaper then clomid... $150 or $1.50... easy decision.

[mrsrodgers]

You know, I have tried everything else...I am going to go buy some yams and start eating them...not real fond of them but heck, I'm not fond of giving myself a shot either!!! Do you think it would matter if it is sweet potatoes - I honestly don't know the difference....

[Persephone1881]

Originally Posted by mrsrodgers

Do you think it would matter if it is sweet potatoes - I honestly don't know the difference....

After a quick look at the Wikipedia articles about yams and sweet potatoes, I don't think they're similar enough to be interchangeable for this purpose. In the US "yam" and "sweet potato" usually refer to the same thing, but they're really not very closely related at all.

[MrsBiff]

Originally Posted by mrsrodgers

You know, I have tried everything else...I am going to go buy some yams and start eating them...not real fond of them but heck, I'm not fond of giving myself a shot either!!! Do you think it would matter if it is sweet potatoes - I honestly don't know the difference....

so, ironically on Good eats tonight, they covered sweet potatoes. (yams, are actually african, but during the days when there were slaves, the slaves called sweet potatoes yams as slang because they compared them.) african yams are actually lbs heavy...

but anyway, on that episode, they made sweet potato waffles.. now, that sounds really good to me...

[mrsrodgers]

sweet potatoe waffles sound really good....

I guess I will try yams - I will have to look in the produce department and look and see which is which... THANKS!!!!

[MrsBiff]

mrsrodgers, heres the recipe for the sweet potato waffles. im trying it this weekend:: its from the food network


Sweet Potato Waffles Recipe courtesy Alton BrownSee this recipe on air Tuesday Nov. 27 at 2:00 AM ET/PT.
Show: Good EatsEpisode: Potato, My Sweet 1 1/2 cups peeled and cubed sweet potatoes
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 egg whites, at room temperature
1 cup milk
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
Vegetable spray, for waffle iron Special equipment: steamer basket and waffle iron
Put cubed sweet potatoes in a steamer basket. Place the basket in a large pot of simmering water that is no closer than 2 inches from the bottom of steamer. Allow potatoes to steam for 20 minutes of until fork tender. Mash cooked potatoes and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside.

In another bowl combine the sweet potatoes, milk, brown sugar, butter, and grated orange rind. Stir the sweet potato mixture into the flour mixture and thoroughly combine. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gradually fold egg whites into batter 1/3 at a time. The batter will be thick. Using a No. 20 disher (scoop), place 2 scoops of batter onto a preheated, oiled waffle iron, and cook until lightly browned, about 5 to 6 minutes.

[MrsBiff]

so i did a little research. the phytoestrogen that is found in yams is also found in soy.. and all the infertility sites i found said soy can cause infertility.. so obviously something is fishy here.

but nothing i found said that yams even had phytoestrogen.

and sweet potatos dont... yay... cheers for sweet potato waffles... and an increase of vitamin a in our diet...