HUMANS aren't the only primate to risk the reproductive repercussions of a diet rich in oestrogen-like compounds. Gorillas and colobus monkeys both eat large quantities of plants containing the chemicals, which can disrupt reproduction but have been shown to protect against some cancers.

Phyto-oestrogens are plant chemicals that function like the female sex hormone. In foods like soy and red clover they may protect us from oestrogen-dependent cancers - a group that includes breast and colorectal cancers.

The sex hormone mimics may have a downside, though, says Katharine Milton of the University of California, Berkeley. "Oestrogens are potent chemicals; if you're taking them in excessive amounts, this can interfere with your reproductive physiology."

The potential health effects of phyto-oestrogens are often studied, but no one has looked at whether humans are the only primates with a taste for plants containing the chemicals, says Michael Wasserman of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. If other primates eat them, it might suggest that we have evolved to cope with them in small doses.

Wasserman, Milton and colleagues studied the diets of mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei) and red colobus monkeys (Procolobus rufomitratus) in a national park in Uganda. They found that 10.6 per cent of plants in the colobus diet and 8.8 per cent of those in the gorilla diet contained phyto-oestrogens (American Journal of Physical Anthropology, DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.22045).

Interest in how primates respond to oestrogen-disruptors has been sparked by the rising levels of synthetic oestrogenic chemicals in our environment, such as bisphenol A - although Wasserman cautions that these synthetic forms might act differently from the natural versions.

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Other primates share human taste for plant oestrogens