Night vision in pregnancy
Fairfield and Fletcher's 2002 review of vitamin benefits and risks states that vitamin A is critical for night vision, but in doses as small as 3x the RDA, can cause birth defects. Katz et al (1995) found that night blindness was prevalent among lactating and pregnant Nepalese women, which they attributed to vitamin A deficiency, although Wedner et al (2004) did not find that self-reported night blindness was a good predictor of vitamin A deficiency in a Tanzanian population. Taren et al (2004) suggest that the "Night Vision Threshold Test" is a more accurate predictor, and finds nearly three times as many cases of reduced night vision as self-report.
In October ("I can see clearly"), I mentioned Carlson's review of Taking Sex Differences Seriously (Rhoads, 2004), which apparently claims that women have better night vision. I still haven't managed to find any citation for this claim. While I've certainly encountered more women than men who complain of reduced night vision, I suspect this is more reporting bias than actual fact, a suspicion backed up by Brabyn et al's (2005) finding that women (even with better vision) are more likely to voluntarily restrict themselves to daytime driving than men.
edit: "Deviantart News" article (3/17/07) found by huGoFdeStruction "somewhere in the net" claims that "women have more cones and men have more rods". An April 4th comment by "Neuropsychguy" suggests that this is a misinterpretation of tetrachromacy data.
In October ("I can see clearly"), I mentioned Carlson's review of Taking Sex Differences Seriously (Rhoads, 2004), which apparently claims that women have better night vision. I still haven't managed to find any citation for this claim. While I've certainly encountered more women than men who complain of reduced night vision, I suspect this is more reporting bias than actual fact, a suspicion backed up by Brabyn et al's (2005) finding that women (even with better vision) are more likely to voluntarily restrict themselves to daytime driving than men.
edit: "Deviantart News" article (3/17/07) found by huGoFdeStruction "somewhere in the net" claims that "women have more cones and men have more rods". An April 4th comment by "Neuropsychguy" suggests that this is a misinterpretation of tetrachromacy data.