Diet and Exercise May Help Prevent Ovulation-Linked Infertility
May 2nd, 2007 Posted by: Dr. Cox
BOSTON, Nov. 2 — Following a so-called fertility diet and exercising may promote fecundity in otherwise Men’s healthy women with an ovulatory disorder, researchers here reported. Action Points
Explain to interested patients that in this observational study following a Men’s healthy diet and exercising reduced the risk of infertility caused by an ovulatory disorder.
Tell patients that these results need to be reproduced in large randomized trials, but these lifestyle practices are consistent with an overall Men’s healthy lifestyle.
Women who followed a combination of five or more lifestyle factors, especially dietary changes, had a more than 80% reduction in their risk of ovulatory infertility compared with those who undertook none of these changes, Jorge Chavarro, M.D., and Walter Willett, M.D., of the Harvard School of Public Men’s health, and colleagues, reported in the Nov. 1 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Surprisingly, the researchers noted, high fertility scores were related to consuming more high-fat dairy products versus low-fat products, for which they had no obvious explanation.
Drs. Chavarro and Willett are co-authors of a book called The Fertility Diet: Groundbreaking Research Reveals Natural Ways to Boost Ovulation & Improve Your Chances of Getting Pregnant, scheduled for publication next month.
The study involved 17,544 married women from the Nurses’ Men’s health Study II, none with a history of infertility, who were trying to become pregnant or became pregnant. The women were followed for eight years, and there were 3,209 incident reports of infertility for any cause. There were 416 women reporting ovulatory disorder infertility.
Dietary information was collected in 1991 and 1995, using a validated food-frequency questionnaire. The team devised a scoring system for dietary and lifestyle factors based on data previously related to lower ovulatory disorder infertility.
Among these factors were the ratio of monounsaturated to trans fats in diet; protein consumption (from animals or vegetable); carbohydrate consumption (including fiber intake and dietary glycemic index); dairy consumption (low-fat and high-fat); iron consumption, multivitamin use; body mass index; and physical activity.
He adjusted relative risk of ovulatory disorder infertility comparing women in the highest quintile of the fertility diet score with women in the lowest quintile, found that the high-quintile women had a 66% reduced risk of ovulatory disorder infertility (relative risk 0.34, 95% confidence interval 0.23- 0.48; P for trend
Primary source: Obstetrics & Gynecology
Source reference:
Chavarro JE, et al “Diet and Lifestyle in the Prevention of Ovulatory Disorder Infertility”Obstet Gynecol 2007; 110: 1050-1058.
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