Nutrition & Exercise

Enhancing Fertility Through a Healthy Lifestyle

What you eat and how you move can improve or harm your fertility. With so many differences in opinion and poorly conducted studies, it becomes difficult to navigate how to approach your nutrition and exercise routines while trying to conceive. This page encompasses a more evidence based guideline to nutrition and exercise for those trying to conceive (or simply trying to optimize overall lifestyle!)

Nutrition

What you eat directly impacts hormone regulation, egg and sperm quality, and overall reproductive health. A nutrient-rich diet can help optimize ovulation, support embryo development, and ensure that your body is in the best possible condition to conceive. It’s important to have a well balanced diet without being restrictive or eliminating any macronutrients (fats, carbs, proteins).

Here are key points for each macronutrient:

Fats

Fats are important for various physiologic processes, including hormone production. Despite their important role, there are good fats and bad fats. The types of fats that should be avoided are saturated and trans fats which not only increase your future risk for heart disease but can also negatively impact fertility (it increases insulin resistance and can result in ovulatory problems) (Kaipia et al, 1996). In contrast, polyunsaturated fats (PUFA) can be beneficial for your lipid profile, vascular function and reproductive function. PUFA is an essential precursor for steroid hormone synthesis (estrogen/progesterone), is needed for egg maturation and embryo development (Sturmey et al, 2009), as well as for implantation and supporting early pregnancy (Norwitz et al, 2001).

Examples of dietary sources of PUFA:

• Walnuts
• Chia seeds
• Flax seeds
• Sunflower seeds
• Fish
• Soybean oil

Carbohydrates

When consumed in moderation, carbs can be an extremely beneficial energy source! However, quantity and quality of carb consumption can affect glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity. Blood glucose levels and insulin sensitivity play major roles in hormone production in the ovaries and are thus highly linked to reproduction! Findings from the Nurse’s health study II, demonstrated that higher glycemic load consumption resulted in higher risk of ovulatory dysfunction and infertility. This was particularly pronounced in women with PCOS when consuming high glycemic-index foods.

Whole grains consumption, however, may actually boost fertility! Whole grains are high in antioxidants/anti-inflammatory properties, and can improve blood sugar control and decrease insulin resistance (Agarwal et al, 2002).

Proteins

Recommended daily protein intake is 0.8g/kg of body weight. For those getting into weight lifting, your dietary protein needs will increase to 1-1.5g/kg especially when performing heavy lifting. In fact, women consuming up to 3.4g/kg/day have improved metabolic parameters and body composition (reduced abdominal fat and increased lean mass) without any adverse effects (Morenga et al., 2010; Antonio et al., 2015; Sørensen et al., 2012). Plant sources of protein have been found to be optimal for reproductive function, reduction in long term risk of cardiovascular disease and various cancers.

Dairy proteins: contains galactose which has been shown in a number of studies to impact egg quality (Bandyopadhyay et al. 2003, Cramer et al, 1994) . Additionally, higher consumption of milk per capita was associated with a steeper decline in fertility with age (Cramer et al, 1994), and ovulatory problems. These findings remain controversial based on contradicting results where in other studies showing dairy consumption did not impact fertility (Greenlee et al., 2003,Chavarro et al., 2007) more specifically, high fat dairy. Ultimately, effects of dairy consumption on fertility is difficult to study and high quality data is lacking. The takeaway from most studies is that minimizing dairy intake is likely to be beneficial with only modest consumption being ok.

Animal proteins: Animal proteins, particularly red meats, have been found to impact fertility in a number of mechanisms (including ovulation, endometrial receptivity for an implanting embryo, etc), though less evident with fish and eggs (Chavarro et al., 2008). Many animal proteins, particularly beef and pork contain high amounts of saturated fats, which if consumed in high amounts can impact ovulatory function based on long term prospective studies (Chavarro et al., 2007). Fish, though exposed to a number of environmental toxins, appears to remain beneficial due to its high source of omega-3 fatty acids and is linked to greater reproductive outcomes, including greater embryo quality (Braga et al., 2015).

Soy proteins: Soy remains controversial regarding its risk vs benefit. Like any other type of food, the source matters! A number of recent studies have shown that higher soy intake actually improves pregnancy rates, IVF outcomes and live birth rate. So it is unlikely to harm your fertility (Unfer et al., 2004; Unfer et al., 2004; Vanegas et al., 2015).

Ultimately, your nutrition should focus on a well balanced diet, low in processed foods and using organic produce free of pesticides (as much as possible).

Exercise

There is no doubt that exercise is not only beneficial but also incredibly important for long-term health for the prevention of chronic disease, cardiovascular and mental health as well as reproductive health. Often, when a woman is trying to conceive she is told to abstain from exercising. Though there are moments in time where high impact exercise should be avoided (for example during ovarian stimulation), overall, exercise is encouraged.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Service (USDHHS) recommends a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per day, for a total of 150 minutes per week. This includes women trying to conceive and women who are pregnant as long as there are no contraindications to it (USDHHS, 2008); This should include 2-3 sessions of resistance training per week.

Want to learn more? Contact us at 310-943-5820 or email BH_Reception@havingbabies.com or fill out a form today to schedule a consultation!