For the second study, published in the July issue of Obesity Reviews, researchers reviewed 60 studies that had investigated the relation between weight status and sperm quality. The combined analysis found that overweight and obesity were linked to lower sperm quality e.

Obesity may also cause low sperm quality through increased production of harmful free radicals and inflammatory compounds. Keep in mind, both of these evidence reviews included observational studies and therefore do not prove causality.

Eating a Mediterranean diet e. In men, the DASH diet, which features beans and lentils, nuts, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, fish, poultry and low-fat dairy, has been associated with improved sperm counts.

On the other hand, a typical Western diet, higher in red meat, saturated fat and refined carbohydrates, has been tied to lower sperm quality.

Eating a diet that emphasizes whole grains, fruits and vegetables, plant proteins, fish, poultry and unsaturated fats, and limits refined starches and added sugars, red meat and saturated fat can help prevent overweight and insulin resistance. It can also help guard against high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and dementia.

Leslie Beck, a Toronto-based private practice dietitian, is Director of Food and Nutrition at Medcan. Report an error. Editorial code of conduct.

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Readers can also interact with The Globe on Facebook and Twitter. While the study occurred in a single center, the gains made between the highest and lowest quartile are astonishing for their size and consistency.

At the moment, the data on how red meat and white meat impact fertility is mixed, but on balance it is negative, especially in the case of processed red meat.

As you can see below, the opposite was true with vegetable consumption. For men, the better run studies seems to suggest consuming poultry is of little harm.

On the other hand consuming processed red meats like sausage or baloney is more closely associated with issues than eating unprocessed red meats like a piece of chicken or steak. Amongst women trying to conceive naturally, greater seafood intake correlates with better fertility.

Below is a study of couples tracking their Time To Pregnancy based on seafood and fish consumption. However, the greatest benefit was conferred when both members of a couple ate 8 or more servings per cycle.

As you can see below, the cumulative odds of conception after each menstrual cycle is higher for the couples where both partners consume high levels of seafood and seafood rather than when just one partner does. All the same, some of the benefit of consuming seafood can be diminished if that seafood has been exposed to pollutants or mercury.

As a result, where the seafood is caught, and what type it is, matters. A good illustration of this are two similar studies performed in Sweden which has cleaner waters and in the Lake Ontario region more contaminated waters that looked at local fish consumption and time to pregnancy.

Today the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that women who are trying to conceive eat two to three servings of fish per week but limit their fish composed of high levels of mercury. Items like canned tuna are of moderate risk and should only be eaten once per week.

Within an IVF population, the Brazilian study we referenced earlier noted that women who consumed greater levels of fish recorded higher levels of blastocyst embryos embryos most likely to lead to a live birth , but that did not translate into a higher predicted rate of pregnancy. The data on the impact of dairy on fertility is contradictory.

We have two good studies on the subject. In the second trial, when the investigators of the Nurses Health Study tracked women who had trouble conceiving due to ovulatory dysfunction, they noticed women with a high intake of high fat dairy were more likely to be able to ovulate and conceive than women with a high intake of low fat dairy.

Specifically, whole milk appeared to be associated with better ovulation while low fat yogurt, frozen yogurt, and sherbert were associated with more ovulation issues.

Amongst women undergoing IVF , the best study on the subject followed over women and determined in women 35 and over higher daily dairy intake closely associated with increased rates of success, especially at rates of over 3 servings per day amongst younger women it had no correlation to success.

Soy and its impact on fertility has been controversial for some time largely because in animals like cows and cheetahs soy intake has been closely correlated with infertility.

However, in humans the data pretty clearly demonstrates that soy intake in women does no harm when trying to conceive naturally and in high quantities, through supplements, is helpful when a woman must resort to ovulation induction, IUI or IVF. To understand what it takes to follow a Low GI diet here is a sample menu from the study for Low GI vs healthy eating plans for PCOS.

As you can see, the difference between low GI and usual diet is nothing too crazy. There are subtle changes, like swapping, higher GI foods to lower ones: whole-meal bread with whole grain bread or having an apple instead of banana.

The above meal plan has some issues. Namely the use of low-fat dairy and breakfast cereal. Studies have shown that full-fat dairy is actually better for ovulation and breakfast cereals should be avoided. The above graph shows the scale of improvements women recorded themselves eating low GI LGI vs conventional healthy diet CHD.

A higher column reflects a greater change in each domain. In this study, better blood sugar control helped more women to ovulate regularly. Furthermore, this way of eating reduces inflammation. We should not forget that in this study authors compared two rather healthy food plans.

I assume the difference would be even more dramatic if women were allowed to have what they usually eat. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis compared how low GI weigh up to High GI diets for overweight women with PCOS.

Low GI won in all key areas:.

The above graph shows the scale of improvements women recorded themselves eating low GI LGI vs conventional healthy diet CHD. A higher column reflects a greater change in each domain.

In this study, better blood sugar control helped more women to ovulate regularly. Furthermore, this way of eating reduces inflammation. We should not forget that in this study authors compared two rather healthy food plans. I assume the difference would be even more dramatic if women were allowed to have what they usually eat.

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis compared how low GI weigh up to High GI diets for overweight women with PCOS. Low GI won in all key areas:. Low GI was equally beneficial for women with and without PCOS.

Study participants lost weight and their bodies controlled sugar better. If you are ready to give low GI foods a go, a good place to start is the website of the University of Sydney. Here you will find low GI food recipes, ingredient swaps and get plenty of inspiration.

A searchable database for low GI and GL fertility foods is here. Glycemic load Another handy measure when using low GI foods is the glycemic load. Dairy has been identified as having a neutral to beneficial effect on fertility and inflammation Nieman et al. There have been some reports of potential deleterious effects of soy phytoestrogens on reproductive outcomes in non-human mammals Seppen, This has not been confirmed in human RCTs where the observed benefits of isoflavones include increased endometrial thickness and clinical pregnancy rates in patients undergoing uterine insemination Unfer et al.

There have also been reports that phytoestrogens when supplemented in the luteal phase may improve the implantation and clinical pregnancy rates in women undergoing IVF Unfer, Casini, Gerli et al. In spite of these promising findings, we did not observe these reports in this scoping review. The lack of consistent beneficial association of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains with fertility was surprising given the numerous vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, bioactive nutrients, antioxidants, or non-nutrient components present in these foods Gutteridge and Halliwell, ; Blomhoff, , as well as prior reports of whole grains being associated with endometrial thickness on the day of embryo transfer and improved embryo receptivity and implantation Gaskins et al.

This may reflect the overall limited number of included studies for these dietary exposures. This scoping review offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date search that overviews current observational evidence of the relationships between diet and fertility and evidence gaps that must be filled prior to adoption into clinical practice.

Limitations identified in this review include heterogeneity in comparators, exposures and confounders, and observational data precluding causation and making it difficult to reach definitive conclusions on any proposed associations.

However, we purposely examined observational studies with the intention of guiding and generating hypotheses for future interventional research. This is a key benefit of observational data and one which should not be underestimated.

Indeed, prior systematic reviews have highlighted that existing RCTs examining lifestyle and fertility report on general healthy lifestyle changes only Lan et al. It should also be noted that much of the currently available evidence is not suitable for controlled human studies or RCT designs, and, in this context, observational studies offer considerable insights into the potential benefits or harms, or lack thereof, of specific diets and dietary components for fertility.

Another limitation is that the majority of findings identified herein were derived from a small number of studies and further observational data may be required to inform the design and execution of intervention studies.

The limited number of observational studies also precluded sub-group analysis in women with different aetiologies of fertility such as polycystic ovary syndrome PCOS or endometriosis and prohibits the pooling of data in meta-analysis.

Despite these limitations, there is emerging literature on the relationship between diet and PCOS and endometriosis, which may allow for more stratified sub-group analyses in future.

While it is important to assess individual dietary changes, foods are not eaten in isolation and there are likely important additive or synergistic effects of different nutrients in a whole diet setting that were not captured in the included studies.

This may partly explain the reason for the consistent evidence found in holistic dietary approaches predominantly, the MedDiet compared to the nutrient-specific assessments included in this review.

Moreover, the way different diets are analysed in a specific study may impact the results. For example, some dietary pattern studies included in this review adopted a data-driven approach Vujkovic et al. Therefore, discrepancies across studies may reflect differences in methodology rather than actual inconsistencies in the effect of the exposure.

The heterogeneity in geographical origin of these studies similarly impacts the interpretation of these results. Different geographic locales have varying environmental factors influencing production and consumption of food climate, religion, and culture , and therefore impacting the influence of these dietary exposures in certain patient populations.

Moreover, language barriers, specifically in observational studies where the diet is self-reported, may result in classification bias. While there was a wide array of geographical locales investigated, most of the studies were conducted in developed countries The West, Europe, and Scandinavia , precluding appropriate assessment of these dietary exposures in disadvantaged populations.

Importantly, many included outcomes were in line with the core outcomes set for infertility Duffy et al. However, these were inconsistently reported across the various dietary exposures and between spontaneous and ART populations. There was also variation in the definitions used to assess infertility e.

some defined reduced fecundity as higher time to pregnancy using TRs, whereas others assessed fecundity using probability regression modelling to assess the per-cycle probability of conception which increases opportunities to engage in selective outcome reporting Duffy et al.

Core outcomes such as gestational age at delivery or core safety measures in ART studies such as neonatal mortality or major congenital anomaly were not reported. Therefore, there is a need for further nutrition-based research on fertility to standardize outcomes and assessment.

Adherence to the MedDiet and reducing TFA and discretionary foods, show potential benefit in improving fertility outcomes for both spontaneous and ART pregnancies. Seafood, dairy and soy demonstrated inconsistent findings across the few included studies.

Supplementary data are available at Human Reproduction Update online. No new data were generated or analysed in support of this work. All data are available via published manuscripts cited in this manuscript. assisted in title and abstract screening.

assisted in full-text screening, data extraction. provided intellectual input. reviewed and synthesized the extracted data and wrote the first draft of the manuscript with assistance from J.

conceptualized and determined the scope of the manuscript and supervised the review process. All authors meet ICMJE criteria for authorship and approved the final version for publication. This work received no specific funding. is supported by a Monash University Faculty Graduate Research Stipend.

is supported by a Heart Foundation of Australia Future Leader Fellowship. is supported by a Peter Doherty Biomedical Research Fellowship provided by the National Health and Medical Research Council NHMRC of Australia.

is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council NHMRC grant APP Afeiche MC , Chiu YH , Gaskins AJ , Williams PL , Souter I , Wright DL , Hauser R , Chavarro JE ; EARTH Study Team.

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Try incorporating complex carbohydrates into your diet. Eat foods with fiber like fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains. Plant proteins come from beans, nuts, seeds and tofu.

In addition to creating a fertility diet plan, you should also be mindful of your weight. Stay active and exercise while you eat right. Keep up with the latest news and information about fertility by checking in with our blog every week. We post everything you need to know about your fertility treatments journey.

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