Can diet affect your fertility?

A large group of nurses over many years kept track of their diet and activities in a research project called The Nurses Health Study. Subsequent researches took this information and analyzed it in an attempt to discover what foods contributed to their fertility. They discovered that diet and fertility are indeed linked. What you eat does have an effect on ovulation and ovulation related infertility.

They discovered  10 key dietary and lifestyle guidelines to follow to maximize your fertility through diet. If you want a natural do it at home approach to increasing your fertility, this is it.

• Don’t eat trans fats which is found in fast food, commercially prepared baked goods and stick margarine just to name a few common foods. If your read food labels it may also say partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. THis is trans fat. There is also evidence that a diet high in trans fats may contribute to endometriosis and to miscarriage.

• Eat unsaturated fats like olive oil and canola oil. We all need oil in our diet and these are the healthy ones. Omega 3 oils are also in this category. These oils are necessary in our diet since our body doesn’t make them. Eating omega 3 fatty acids found in fish like salmon and trout and also found in walnuts, flax, chia seeds and others seem to help protect against endometriosis.

• Eat more vegetarian type dietary proteins like beans and nuts and less animal protein. Some believe that protein sources other than meat sources are a healthier choice, since replacing an animal protein with a vegetable source showed the lowest risk of ovulatory infertility. Protein is an important nutrient and provides the basis of our muscles, bones and skin. Meat and fish provide a complete protein, however, vegetable proteins are incomplete proteins so you must properly combine them to get the full spectrum of proteins. Eat beans with whole grains or nuts with whole grains. Check with a vegetarian cook book to learn more about protein combining. I am not advocating avegetarian diet, but just make sure if you do limit your animal protein, that you get sufficient full spectrum protein.

• Eat whole grains that have a slower effect on your blood sugar and insulin levels. Your body produces insulin in response to the flood of sugar entering your blood stream as your food is digested and broken down. If insulin is produced too much, it can have a detrimental effect on your sex hormones andinterfere with conception.

• If you eat dairy products replace your low and non-fat dairy with whole dairy products. In the Nurses Health Study those that ate full-fat dairy had less trouble getting pregnant, while those who ate low or no fat dairy had more trouble becoming pregnant. Even one serving a day of non fat dairy had a large impact on fertility and in fact those who ate low fat yoghurt, frozen yoghurt and sherbet had the highest incidence of ovulatory infertilily.Full fat yogurt is a good choice to include with the added benefit that it introduces probiotics into your system.

• Take a daily multivitamin that includes B vitamins and folic acid in adequate amounts. The nurses who took a multivitamin had a 40% lower likelihood of having ovulatory infertility. Taking at least 700mcg daily of folic acid showed in the study to help improve fertility and ovulation.

• Get your iron from supplements and foods, but not red meat. Good dietary sources of iron are beans, dates, apricots, almonds, spinach, molasses and many others. Women in the study who took 40-80mg of iron daily had the greatest protection from ovulatory infertility, while women who got their iron from meat had the least protection. Iron from vegetable sources also increase fertility as well.

• Drink water, avoid sugary sodas and limit coffee, tea and alcohol. While the study seemed to show that moderate caffeine and alcohol consumption didn’t have an effect on fertility, use caution here. Being properly hydrated is very important. Just remember caffeine and alcohol can dehydrate you and you will need to take this into consideration if you do include it in your diet. The biggest culprit in beverages was the sugary sodas. These had a definite negative impact on fertility, so if you eliminate anything this is the most important one.

• Stay in a healthy weight range. If you are overweight losing 5-10% of your weight may help jump start ovulation! If you are already slender don’t lose weight since this can adversely affect or stop ovulation.

• Exercise daily. Exercise helps regulate blood sugar and insulin levels. Keeping these two in check will enhance your fertility and when they are not well regulated they can interfere with ovulation. The Nurses Health Study and other recent studies have confirmed that exercise does indeed improve fertility.Start slowly if you are unused to exercise, but if you already exercise increase your workouts a little, but but don’t overdo it as this can also adversely affect your fertility. The best rule of thumb is to get 30 minutes of exercise per day.If you are an athlete and/or extremely lean and exercise vigourously, have a BMI under 18, and don’t have a regular menstrual cycle,you may want to disregard this advice. In fact stopping exercise for a while may in fact help you to start ovulating and menstruating again.

Even if you aren’t concerned about fertility, this is an excellent diet for overall general health and will serve you well throughout your life!

If you would like a dietary program created specifically for you I provide Diet and Fertility programs and coaching.

Much of the information on this page came from the fabulous book The Fertility Diet by Jorge Chavarro, MD and Walter Willett, MD. I highly recommend it.