twins (Page 2)

How much are twins reallyalike? Even non-identical twins, who have only half their DNA in common, are surprisingly the same. In the UK, two such twins who didn’t know they were related found that they were so compatible that they got married. It’s good thing that forgiveness is good for our health!

The twins were separated at birth and never knew each other as children, but found developed an “inevitable attraction” when they met for the first time as adults. Their marriage was annulled as soon as their twinship was discovered.

BBC News quotes adoption expert Mo O’Reilly as saying, “This sad case illustrates why, over the last 20-30 years, the shift to openness in adoption was so important.”
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A new study finds that women who consume animal products, specifically dairy, are five times more likely to have twins than those who do not, and the reason may have to do with the growth hormones fed to cows. Meanwhile, other studies show that identical twins are not as identical as we once thought they were.

A growth protein called IGF is released from the liver of animals and humans in response to growth hormones. IGF circulates in the blood gets into an animal’s milk. When women drink milk or eat meat, the IGF increases ovulation and might also help embryos survive in the early stages of development. The concentration of IGF in the blood is about 13% lower in vegan women than in women who consume dairy.
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Years ago, it wasn’t considered “PC” for identical twins to be too much alike, despite the fact that they are biologically identical, so sociologists stressed the differences between identical twins who were raised apart. Then later studies showed that identical twins are amazingly alike, even those who didn’t know they even had a twin: they married people with the same names, had the same favorite foods and favorite colors, etc. Now a recent study shows that Identical twins lose some of these similarities as they grow older.

These differences may stem from environmental changes that chemically modify a person’s genes. Your DNA spiral stays the same, but your individual genes can change, depending on your exposure to chemicals, foods and environmental factors.
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