This past month, NEWSWEEK featured a cover story on Fertility and Diet. Feel free to read the article in its entirety, but I’ll share with you what I got out of it.

We’ve known all along that lifestyle factors such as exercise, smoking, diet and stress can affect us in important ways including longevity, energy level, mood and risk of diseases. It’s not a stretch of the imagination to think that lifestyle factors could also impact fertility.

Harvard researcher Jorge Chavarro has co-authored a book entitled The Fertility Diet, based on data collected from The Nurses’ Health Study, a large ongoing research project which gathers information on a variety of lifestyle factors and their relationship to medical conditions.

I’m going to go on to be one of those annoying people who sort of does a pseudo book review without having read the whole book ( I did read the entire ARTICLE ), but you can be the judge of whether what I say is helpful or not.

First of all, contrary to how it has sometimes been marketed, what this book is NOT is a magic remedy to BOOST your fertility. It does show some very interesting findings on the differences in fertility between women who have different dietary habits. However, there are two important points to remember. These are merely women who are trying to conceive, not women with established fertility problems. As you know, advice that is given to regularly fertile women (relax and take a vacation and oops, you’ll get pregnant easily) doesn’t work for those who have been unsuccessfully trying for years and years already. Second, all the data really shows is a CORRELATION between women who have certain diets and the % of them who conceive. It does not show that the diet CAUSES the fertility. It’s possible that the opposite direction is the case and that a woman’s fertility situation actually affects her dietary choices. It’s even more possible that there is a yet identified third factor that affects both one’s fertility and one’s diet.

Even more importantly, there is no hard PROOF that actively changing your diet will change your chances of conceiving, again because no causality has been shown. Pretend someone does a research study and finds out that people with Ivy League college diplomas hanging on their walls make better engineers (I’m not actually saying this is the case, by the way). It would be wrong then to jump to the conclusion that if we started handing out Ivy League college diplomas to everybody, then we could have a nation of better engineers. Having said all that, it’s still my personal guess or opinion that changing ones diet, WOULD, at least to some extent, positively affect ones chances at conceiving.

According to the article, here is a summary of the specific dietary features that might be better:

• Eating more so-called SLOW carbohydrates (dark bread, brown rice and pasta, whole grains) in place of fast carbohydrates (cold breakfast cereals, potatoes, white rice).
• Eating more unsaturated fats (avocados, vegetable oils) in place of trans fats (palm and coconut oils, hydrogenated fats, dietary cholesterol, animal fats, lard, butter). This was one of the more important factors according to the study.
• Having a lower body mass index. Being overweight is correlated with fertility problems. The best range of BMI was between 20-24, with 21 being optimal. If you wish to calculate your BMI, try this useful calculator.
• Eating more plant protein is place of animal protein.
• Consuming whole milk and whole dairy products instead of skim milk. This was the most counter-intuitive finding. It was a surprise to find out that milk with natural milk fat was actually better than skim milk. However, the benefits were seen with amounts as small as one cup of ice cream per WEEK. So if you buy that small pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, it should last you two weeks.
• Exercising regularly was better than no exercise. Unless you have very low body fat, like a gymnast or ballerina, you should aim for doing more exercise rather than less. A good target is to do 30 minutes daily.

If the thought of making drastic lifestyle changes feels overwhelming, remember the principle of trying different things in an attempt to improve your odds of conceiving.  The easiest approach is to pick one or two of the above areas and see whether or not making a change in your life results in pregnancy, or if not that, at least an improvement in your menstrual regularity, especially if you are not normally regular. Remember. If what you’re doing is not working, try something different, including eventually going to see a good reproductive endocrinologist.

Now go and enjoy your holiday feasts, everyone. Merry Christmas!