News From the Field
Estrogenic Plants Linked to Altered Hormones, Possible Behavior Changes in Monkeys

November 19, 2012

Male red colobus monkeys that ate more of an estrogen-containing plant not only had higher levels of the hormones estradiol and cortisol in their systems, but they were more aggressive, had more sex and groomed less. The finding that the consumption of plant-based hormones may have affected primate behavior suggests that it could have played an important role in primate evolution. Full Story

Source
University of California, Berkeley

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