The fertility diet – could it work for you?

Have you been trying to get pregnant? Is it taking longer than you'd like? Has your doctor confirmed that the delay in conceiving may be due to an ovulation disorder? If so, a recent study suggests that your baby dreams may just become a reality, simply by changing your diet. 

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in the USA examined the impact diet has on ovulation-based fertility problems, and the results were astounding.

Walter Willett, senior author of the research paper and chair of the HSPH Department of Nutrition said their study had indicated that "making the right dietary choices and including the right amount of physical activity in your daily life may make a large difference in your probability of becoming fertile if you are experiencing problems with ovulation".

The problem of infertility

Women who have these problems often find they ovulate infrequently and may also have infrequent periods. This means it can be very difficult to time intercourse to coincide with the release of an egg (ovulation), so there are fewer opportunities to conceive. 

Infertility affects about 15 per cent of the community. The medical definition of infertility is when you've been trying to become pregnant for 12 months and are still waiting to see that little blue line! 

The problem of infertility can be a very complex one as it can affect both male and female partners, or just one or the other. Around 45 per cent of all infertility problems are a result of problems with the male's sperm. Twenty five percent can be attributed to ovulation disorders while tubal disease or endometriosis is each responsible for fifteen per cent of female infertility problems. 

Diet, lifestyle and ovulation

The study conducted at HSPH focused only on infertility problems that were caused by ovulation disorders. The researchers followed a group of 17,544 married women. The team devised a system where dietary and lifestyle factors were scored. Previous studies have found that these factors could predict infertility that was due to an ovulatory disorder. 

Knowing this, researchers gave these factors scores that they could compare against actual fertility rates in the group of women they studied.

The factors included:
• The ratio of mono-unsaturated to trans fats in diet
• Protein consumption (derived from animals or vegetables)
• Carbohydrates consumption (including intake of fibre and dietary glycemic index (GI) levels)
• Dairy consumption (of low- and high-fat dairy)
• Iron consumption
• Multivitamin use
• Body mass index (BMI, weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters)
• Physical activity

What they found

Over the course of the study, researchers found that the women whose lifestyle and diet were linked to a lower risk of infertility:
• Consumed fewer trans fats
• Ate less sugar from carbohydrates (they had a lower GI diet)
• Consumed more protein from vegetables than from animals (by eating more vegies, grains and fruits and less meat)
• Ate more fibre and iron
• Took more multivitamins
• Had a lower BMI
• Exercised for longer periods of time each day
• Consumed more high-fat dairy products and less low-fat dairy products.

The results did not appear to be affected by the women's age or whether or not they had been pregnant in the past.

Lead author of the report, Jorge Chavarro who is a Research Fellow in the HSPH Department of Nutrition said, "We analysed what happens if you follow one, two, three, four, or more different factors. What we found was that, as women started following more of these recommendations, their risk of infertility dropped substantially for every one of the dietary and lifestyle strategies undertaken. In fact, we found a sixfold difference in ovulatory infertility risk between women following five or more low-risk dietary and lifestyle habits and those following none."

So, if your infertility problems are ovulation-based, then talk to your doctor about the results of this study and what they could mean for you. More information on the report is available at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/

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