This work concerns the questions if and to what extent social variables past and present, and actual sports activity and nutritional and smoking habits, have an influence on body compartment indices, and how this differs between female and male medical students from Wrocław, Poland. Backward stepwise regression was applied to four dependent variables, i.e. Body Mass Index (BMI), %Fat Mass (%FM), Extracellular Water/Intracellular Water Index (100×ECW/ICW) and Body Cell Mass Index (BCMI=BCM/height2), and for eighteen independent variables including nutrition, parents’ social status, smoking and sports activity. Females ate meat less frequently and fruit and vegetables more often, and drank beer less frequently but milk more often than did male students. It seems that there exists some effect on fat accumulation resulting from difference in nutrition between females and males. The results may be interpreted in terms of a parental gender effect on body composition of children associated with different conditions of life and nutrition in childhood and youth for female and male students in Wrocław.

The aim of this study was to determine the consistency of spouses’ declarations about contraceptive use and child desire in Turkey. Husbands eligible for the study were currently married to eligible women, i.e. those who generally lived in the same household or who stayed in the household the night before the interview. Husband questionnaires were completed by 1971 men. It was found that 88·9% of the couples had not talked about family planning with each other in the last two months. The percentage of answers on current contraceptive use for all methods that were consistent for husbands and wives was 70·2%. The consistency among partners who stated they would like to have children in the future was found to be 94·8%, and that among partners who were planning to use a contraceptive method was found to be 88·3%.

This note considers two hypotheses on the causes of homosexuality and paedophilia in men, viz. the hypotheses of maternal immunity and of postnatal learning. According to the maternal immune hypothesis, there is progressive immunization of some mothers to male-specific antigens by each succeeding male fetus, and there are concomitantly increasing effects of anti-male antibodies on the sexual differentiation of the brain in each succeeding male fetus. An attempt is made to assess the status of this hypothesis within immunology. Knowledge of the properties of anti-male antibodies is meagre and there has been little direct experimentation on them, let alone on their effects on the developing male fetal brain. Moreover until the relevant antigens are identified, it will not be possible to test mothers of male homosexuals or paedophiles for the presence of such antibodies. Yet until this experimentation has been done, it would seem premature to regard the hypothesis as more than a very provisional explanatory tool. The evidence in relation to the postnatal learning hypothesis is quite different. There is an abundance of data suggesting that male homosexuals and paedophiles report having experienced more sexual abuse (however defined) in childhood (CSA) than do heterosexual controls. The question revolves round the interpretation of these data. Many (though not all) of these studies are correlational and thus subject to the usual qualifications concerning such data. However, there are grounds for supposing that some of the reports are veridical, and there is support from a longitudinal study reporting a small but significant increase in paedophilia in adulthood following CSA. To summarize: most boys who experience CSA do not later develop into homosexuals or paedophiles. However, the available evidence suggests that a few do so as a result of the abuse.

Fertility awareness-based methods of family planning help women to identify the days of the cycle they should avoid unprotected intercourse to prevent pregnancy. Therefore using fertility awareness-based methods influences the timing of sexual activity, which may affect the nature of the sexual relationship. Data are used from the clinical trials of two fertility awareness-based methods – the Standard Days Method and the TwoDay Method – to determine the frequency and timing of intercourse during the cycle, and the determinants of coital frequency. The mean coital frequency of study participants was similar to that reported by users of other methods. Results suggest that coital frequency increases with consecutive cycles of method use. At the same time the frequency of intercourse during the identified fertile days and during menses decreases. This evidence implies a behavioural change as couples get more experience using their method and communicating about the fertile days. Coital frequency was also influenced by the method used and by the study sites. Potential differences between the methods and sites that may contribute to this effect are discussed.

Contraceptive prevalence is a key variable estimated from Demographic and Health Surveys. But the prevalence estimated from reports of husbands differs widely from that estimated for wives. In this research, using data from six Demographic and Health Surveys of sub-Saharan Africa, reports from spouses in monogamous couples with no other reported sex partners in the recent period are examined. Agreement ranged from 47% to 82%, but among couples in which one or both reported use, the ‘both’ category represented less than half in all nations except Zimbabwe. Husbands generally had higher reports of condoms, periodic abstinence and pills but fewer reports of the IUD, injections and female sterilization. Either discussion of family planning with the spouse and/or higher socioeconomic status was associated with agreement in most of the surveys. Ambiguities in the survey question regarding current use need to be reduced, perhaps with an added probe question for non-permanent methods.

Using the nationally representative sample of about 15,000 Add Health respondents in Wave III, the hypothesis is tested that masculinity–femininity in adolescence is correlated with sexual orientation 5 years later and 6 years later: that is, that for adolescent males in 1995 and again in 1996, more feminine males have a higher probability of self-identifying as homosexuals in 2001–02. It is predicted that for adolescent females in 1995 and 1996, more masculine females have a higher probability of self-identifying as homosexuals in 2001–02. Masculinity–femininity is measured by the classical method used by Terman & Miles. For both time periods, the hypothesis was strongly confirmed for males: the more feminine males had several times the probability of being attracted to same-sex partners, several times the probability of having same-sex partners, and several times the probability of self-identifying as homosexuals, compared with more masculine males. For females, no relationship was found at either time period between masculinity and sex of preference. The biological mechanism underlying homosexuality may be different for males and females.

Birth order is correlated with male sexual orientation, but the reason(s) for this relationship is unclear. In the present study, data from a Canadian sample of homosexual and heterosexual men (N=604) were used to present evidence of two independent birth order interactions – one with height and the other with parental age – predicting sexual orientation in men. If these findings prove reliable, it raises the possibility that different aetiological factors underlie the birth order/sexual orientation relationship in men.

The paper analyses to what extent the timing of the very first date of American adolescents in the 1960s correlated with their physical stature and cognitive ability. Using an event history approach, it was found that intelligence and a weight slightly above the average raised the odds of arranging a first rendezvous, whereas the effect of height was gender-specific. Tallness improved chances among boys, whereas girls whose height was slightly below the average had the highest odds. This pattern was mirrored by the adolescents’ evaluation of their own physical stature. The fact that the estimated associations are remarkably similar to those observed in the literature on fertility and wages suggests that these attributes are selection criteria in situations of social interaction already among adolescents.

Lack of social integration predicts coronary heart disease mortality in prospective studies; however, the biological pathways that may be responsible are poorly understood. The specific aims of this study were to examine whether social networks are associated with serum concentrations of the inflammatory markers interleukin-6 (IL-6), C-reactive protein (CRP), soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1) and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1). Participants in the Framingham Study attending examinations from 1998 to 2001 (n=3267) were eligible for inclusion in the study. Social networks were assessed using the Berkman–Syme Social Network Index (SNI). Concentrations of IL-6, CRP, sICAM-1 and MCP-1 were measured in fasting serum samples. Multivariable linear regression analyses were used to assess the association of social networks with inflammatory markers adjusting for potential confounders including age, smoking, blood pressure, total:HDL cholesterol ratio, body mass index, lipid-lowering and antihypertensive medication, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression and socioeconomic status. Results found that the SNI was significantly inversely associated with IL-6 in men (p=0·03) after adjusting for potential confounders. In age-adjusted analyses, social networks also were significantly inversely associated with IL-6 for women (p=0·03) and were marginally to modestly associated with CRP and sICAM-1 for men (p=0·08 and 0·02, respectively), but these associations were not significant in the multivariate analyses. In conclusion, social networks were found to be inversely associated with interleukin-6 levels in men. The possibility that inflammatory markers may be potential mediators between social integration and coronary heart disease merits further investigation.