Debunking a localized myth: okro leaves and twin births

Everybody loves twins!

Okay, that came out really bad.

Everybody loves twins but not everybody will love to give birth to one!

That sounds better but it would still be offensive to some people.

Some people love twins!

We can finally agree on that. Whether those who love twins love them enough to give birth to one is another discussion.

However, if you are someone like me who loves twins to the extent of wishing to have one, a first look at this video posted by a user on Twitter (now X) will interest you. Even if you don't like twins and wouldn't want to have anything to do with them, I will still encourage you to have a look at the video, if you like the science of things generally.

The video is about a small village in the Southwestern part of Nigeria, popularly referred to as the twin capital of the world by some people. The nomenclature become so fitting that they now celebrate World Twin Day in this village. Virtually all the houses in this village have, at least a twin. According to this BBC article, Igbo ora, as the village is known, boasts 158 twins for every 1000 births. That's roughly 15% of the population.

^{By Todd Huffman - originally posted to Flickr as Soleil TwinsUploaded using F2ComButton, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11058083}

What could be responsible for this high twin rate?

Of course, the first thing that will interest anyone is the factor that is responsible for the unusually high rate of twins within the population. While the factor that could be responsible has hardly received attention from state-of-the-art scientific research, the locals believe that one of their local soups, popularly known as "Ilasa" is responsible.

Ilasa is a soup that is made from young okra leaves, scientifically known as Abelmuschus esculentus. The young leaves are harvested, washed, cut into tiny pieces, and boiled with grains of sodium carbonate. The boiled content is then blended in a blender. In the absence of a blender, the locals use a modified broom, otherwise known as "ijabe" to do the blending. Other condiments such as salt, pepper, fish/meat, oil, etc are added after blending with extreme care observed not to overboil so that the draw soup will not lose its elasticity.

According to the locals of this village, regular consumption of this soup is responsible for the high rate of twins within the population.

It can't be that simple

The report about the soup being responsible for the high twin rate is at best, anecdotal. On one hand, there are no scientific reports that link any content of the ilasa soup to multiple births yet. On the other hand, ilasa soup is not peculiar to the people of Igbo Ora alone. It is a popular soup all over the Southwestern part of Nigeria. Yet, no town or village can boast of half the twin rate in Igbo Ora.

Dizygotic twins, which is the major twin type found in this village, are formed from two different eggs that also get fertilized by two different sperms. This is unlike monozygotic twins that arise when a single fertilized egg divides into two and each egg undergoes division and differentiation to give rise to fetuses. This means that whatever factor (or factors) that is causing the high twin rate in Igbo Ora is a factor (s) that causes multiple eggs to be released from the follicles of Igbo Ora women at once.

According to reports, factors that can increase the chances of multiple births include fertility drugs (like clomid), genetics, and old age. The latter is simply because the older a woman becomes, the more the chances of multiple eggs being released from her follicles at the same time.

Thus, while scientific investigations into what could be responsible for the high twin rate in Igbo Ora, the notion that okro leaves have some correlations with multiple births remains at best, an untested hypothesis. If the ilasa soup is going to be implicated at all in twin births, I'm certain it can't be the lone factor. It will have to be one out of a multi-factor variable.

What do you think?