On Sat, 24 May 2003 ... ginny wilken wrote:

>Again, I'm being a little harsh, but I would
>applaud your not even thinking about fertility
>treatments. There is a good reason why your body
>doesn't feel ready to conceive, and the diet may
>well hold the answer.

Ginny raises an interesting point and one that I have not seen discussed
on this list before.  (May I make it clear at the outset that my comments
do not relate to the subscriber to whom Ginny was responding - they are
generalized speculation).

My point is that Ginny refers to the advantages of following a natural
course of treatment, diet etc to get the best from our bodies.  However,
Ginny's comments come in the

context of a discussion about the damage to a
foetus of parental malnutrition.

Might it not be the case that people of chld-bearing age today are already
damaged by the malnutrition of their parents and the pollutants in our
environment?  Further, that some artificial support is the only way to
overcome this damage.

I have myself as an example.  I was born in the 1940s and would not have
lived through my birth had it not been for the technology used on me in
the maternity hospital.  I was destined to die.  One of my sons was a
breach birth.  He also was destined to die (possibly with my wife) had it
not been for a forceps delivery.

So the world is increasingly populated with people who would not have
survived in the Pleistocene and it may be that the time for confining our
treatments to Pleistocene options has already passed.

Keith