No evidence women 'harvest' DNA from all male sexual partners in study | Fact check
The claim: Study shows that women 'store' DNA from every male sexual partner
A Jan. 15 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows several images, including one of people kissing and one of sperm approaching an egg cell.
"Women Store DNA From Every Man They've Ever Made Love With, Study Finds," reads text superimposed on the images. "Scientists discover that women harvest all male DNA."
The post garnered more than 7,000 likes in a week.
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Our rating: False
The study referenced in the post does not show that women "store" DNA from every male sex partner. Instead, the study describes the discovery of male DNA in women's brains but does not directly investigate the source of the DNA.
Post misrepresents male microchimerism research paper
The text in the post matches the title and subtitle of a 2018 article posted on a since-deleted website called Neon Nettle. The article references a 2012 study that reported the discovery of male DNA in female brain tissue ? a phenomenon called male microchimerism.
The study authors wrote that the DNA was most likely acquired from a male fetus during pregnancy, but the study did not test that hypothesis. The authors also wrote that the DNA could have come from other sources, such as a non-irradiated blood transfusion or the woman's male twin who had been born or had vanished in the mother's womb.
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The authors did not write that sexual intercourse was a possible source of the DNA, nor did they report experimental evidence that the DNA was acquired through sexual intercourse.
"Our study had nothing to do with the claim made," William Chan, lead author of the 2012 paper and then-researcher at the University of Alberta, told USA TODAY in an email.
Other research papers have suggested that sexual intercourse could be a source of male microchimerism, but Lee Nelson, a coauthor on the 2012 paper and professor emerita at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, said she was not aware of any peer-reviewed studies that have tested this hypothesis directly.
USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Reuters and PolitiFact also debunked the claim.
Our fact-check sources:
William Chan, Jan. 22, Email exchange with USA TODAY
Lee Nelson, Jan. 24, Email exchange with USA TODAY
The American Journal of Medicine, August 2005, Male microchimerism in women without sons: Quantitative assessment and correlation with pregnancy history
Plos One, Sept. 26, 2012, Male Microchimerism in the Human Female Brain
Chimerism, Sept. 14, 2016, Microchimerism of male origin in a cohort of Danish girls
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: No evidence women 'store DNA from every man' in study | Fact check
