2023-08-23 15:45:07
Infertility is a health problem for couples all over the world, with an estimated prevalence of 12% to 15% that has an increasing trend. This problem is potentially influenced by lifestyle and environmental factors, such as air pollution and obesity, among others. Although current scientific evidence indicates that certain foods or nutrients can improve the results of the main infertility treatments in women, great ignorance has been dragging on about the exact details of the role that dietary patterns play.
In this sense, a research team from the fields of nutrition, epidemiology and environmental health set out to investigate whether the adherence of women to healthy dietary patterns designed for the prevention of cardiovascular and chronic diseases is associated with better treatment results. of infertility.
The research team from the Food, Nutrition, Development and Mental Health research group of the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) in Tarragona and a team from the Departments of Nutrition, Epidemiology and Environmental Health of Harvard University (United States) decided to check whether a healthy dietary pattern may be related to a lower chance of miscarrying during infertility treatments.
To do this, they evaluated for the first time whether following any of the eight main healthy dietary patterns recognized and validated worldwide is associated with a better chance of having a live child, and also with a lower risk of losing the pregnancy. To do this, they studied a sample of 612 women between the ages of 18 and 45 who underwent the main infertility treatments: intrauterine injection and in vitro fertilization. The patients underwent more than 1,500 cycles; 804 of the first treatment and 768 cycles of the second.
The research team analyzed, first of all, what the diet of the women and their partners was like during the stage prior to assisted reproduction treatments. Later, he analyzed the extent to which women followed one of the eight selected dietary patterns and observed that those who most followed the pattern recommended by the AHA (American Heart Association) for cardiovascular prevention had between 13 and 15 percent less likely to lose the pregnancy than those who had less adherence to this diet.
The AHA pattern is characterized, among others, by a high consumption of fish, whole grains, omega-3 fatty acids and folic acid. “It is a varied diet, without restriction of any food group. The study has confirmed that regular ingestion of these nutrients and foods is associated with a lower risk of suffering an abortion during assisted reproduction cycles, therefore we can say that they are essential for human reproduction”, says Albert Salas-Huetos, professor reader of the URV Preventive Medicine Unit and principal investigator of the Center for Online Biomedical Research of the Carlos III Institute and the Pere Virgili Health Research Institute.
Fish. (Photo: Eric Grafman/CDC)
During the study it was also observed, although no significant associations have been found, that the trend is very similar among other healthy dietary patterns studied, with the exception of the vegetarian diet; vegetable based. “In this case, the difference between the heart-healthy diet recommended by the AHA and the vegetarian diet is the absence of foods such as fish and meat, foods that contain vitamin B12 or omega-3,” says the researcher.
The research, which has been carried out in collaboration with researchers from the University of Girona and the Massachusetts General Hospital, also suggests that these results provide information that may be useful for designing future studies aimed at testing the effects that interventions may have. nutrition on human fertility.
The study is titled “Women’s Adherence to Healthy Dietary Patterns and Outcomes of Infertility Treatment”. And it has been published in the academic journal JAMA Network Open. (Source: URV)
#Probability #pregnancy #success #diet #high #fish #cereals #omega3 #folic #acid