If you're one of the hundreds of people who struggle in math, perhaps it's time to look at your mother's thyroxine hormone levels when she was still pregnant with you.
A group of VU University Medical Centre researchers had just completed a study that establishes the relationship between poor math performance of children and the level of thyroxine their pregnant mothers had.
The Dutch team presented their findings during the yearly meeting of the European Society of Paediatric Endicronology. For the study, they monitored more than a thousand children from the time they were still conceived until the age of 5 and their mothers.
They analyzed the thyroxine levels of these expectant mothers for about 3 months. When the children had already reached 5 or early school age, they also compared test scores in both language and mathematics, including other factors such as environment and health at the time of their birth.
Based on the results, although the level of thyroxine didn't seem to have any significance in the performance of the children in languages, those whose mothers had the lowest thyroxine levels upon pregnancy were around 90% more likely to struggle with math.
Thyroxine, also known as T4, is a hormone that is produced by the thyroid gland. It is responsible for regulating a person's metabolism as well as blood pressure. For expectant mothers, thyroxine contributes to the baby's brain development since the fetus isn't capable of creating it. It also reduces the mother's likelihood of suffering from depression, especially after pregnancy.
Although many doctors had already tried to increase thyroxine production among women with low levels with iodine supplementation, they still didn't experience much success. However, the researchers believed that although supplementation seems to be the most effective way to improve the levels, the timing wasn't right.
Expectant mothers must be provided with up to 150 mcg of iodine while in the early stages of conception. By the tenth week of the first trimester, the baby's brain, along with the kidneys and liver, begin to function. Heartbeat can already be detected as early as 5 weeks. Pregnant mothers were also encouraged to incorporate iodine into their diet by adding salt.
The study doesn't answer how thyroxine affects arithmetic of adults.