Poor nutrition is one of the leading causes of infertility in both men and women. The lack of good nutrition can make a person either overweight or underweight, and it can cause organs to function improperly.
Maintaining a healthy body weight is crucial to fertility, as being overweight or underweight has a detrimental effect on your reproductive system. Metabolic disorders and insulin resistance are just two of the factors that can impair ovulation in women and negatively affect sperm count and sperm motility in men.
How Can Nutrition Affect Fertility?
Poor exercise habits and eating disorders are among the leading causes of nutrition problems in the United States. If you are planning to start a family, you should pay attention to the following nutritional factors:
Insufficient Caloric Intake
Crash dieting and severe food restrictions (such as a diet that is too low in fat consumption) can lead to imbalances, which researchers have discovered have a profound impairment upon reproductive functions. One example of which is suppressed ovulation.
Preventing ovulation in this scenario is nature’s way of preventing pregnancy in a malnourished woman. For a pregnancy to progress, proper nourishment is very important for mother and baby.
Functional hypothalamic amenorrhea (FHA) is the condition behind 35 percent of cases in which adult women no longer have their monthly menstrual cycle. And without your monthly cycle, you will have difficulty getting pregnant.
Eating smaller meals throughout the day is advisable. Avoid the usual unhealthy suspects such as too much saturated fat, high-fructose corn syrup, and alcohol.
A vitamin B-12 deficiency has been linked to early miscarriages. Supplements with antioxidants have shown to be effective in preventing and treating infertility.
Excessive Exercise
While regular exercise can help with fertility, overdoing it can actually impede fertility. Excessive exercise leads to malnutrition because it forces the body to release stored nutrition to provide quick energy for the exercise.
Strenuous exercise such as biking, jogging, and weight training for more than 4 hours a week, or aerobic exercise for more than 7 hours a week, have a negative impact on fertility. The body gets used to excessive exercise and adapts by storing food to burn rather than for reproduction.
The body thus loses its ability to utilize energy for other essential functions such as sperm production or ovulation. So if you do exercise while trying to get pregnant, keep it to a moderate level.
Obesity
Obesity is a disruptor of female fertility. Obese women tend to have issues with their pituitary gland, and this can lead to menstrual dysfunction and infertility.
Similarly, male obesity directly affects estrogen levels – high-fat deposits correspond to higher estrogen and lower testosterone levels. Obese men are also prone to developing metabolic syndrome, which leads to sexual dysfunction and poor sperm production.
Fertility Doctor in Monterey Park
You need a healthy body to get pregnant or to impregnate your partner. If you’re curious as to whether nutrient deficiencies may be contributing to your struggles to conceive, contact us today.
Call us today to schedule a consultation with Dr. Paddy Jim Baggot, M.D., at (213) 386-2606, or request an appointment online. We look forward to helping you bring life into the world.
