Female Hormones May be 'Feminizing' the Western World and Causing Male Obesity

Female hormones may be playing a role in the obesity epidemic. Scientists have found that an imbalance of female sex hormones among men could be contributing to the high levels of male obesity.

The researchers compared obesity rates among men and women from around the world with measures such as Gross Domestic Product in order to determine the impact of affluence on obesity. In the end, he found that while it's normal in the developing world for women to have significantly greater rates of obesity, there's a different picture in the developed world.

"Hormonally driven weight gain occurs more significantly in females than in males, and this is very clear when we look at the rates of obesity in the developing world," said James Grantham, one of the researchers, in a news release. "However, in the Western world, such as in the United States, Europe and Australia, the rates of obesity between men and women are much closer. In some Western nations, male obesity is greater than female obesity. While poor diet is no doubt to blame, we believe there is more to it than simply high caloric intake."

Researchers are aware that exposure to estrogen can cause weight gain. The fact that soy products contain xenoestrogens could be concerning, especially because western nations contain a high dietary saturation of soy. This could, in fact, be contributing to the rise of obesity among men.

In fact, micro-evolutionary changes may be occurring within Western societies that could also be leading to changes in testosterone and estrogen in men.

"This would certainly explain the various concerns about sperm count reductions among men in developed nations," said Maciej Henneberg, one of the researchers, in a news release.

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.