Fertility Diet: Foods that Help You Get Pregnant Faster- Dr Lora Shahine

i'm dr laura shaheen welcome to my youtube channel today we're going to talk about which foods improve your fertility i'm dr laura shaheen i'm a reproductive endocrinologist helping people build families for over 15 years and answering questions every day like how can i improve my fertility and what foods should i eat it's such a common question and this question comes from my patients as well as you in this community thank you for the comments in my previous youtube videos because they help me understand what you want to learn about so take time and comment in

this video with other questions you have and other topics that you want to cover today we're talking about food and fertility and today we're going to talk about specifically four types and groups of foods that have been studied well and been shown to improve your fertility we're going to talk about fruits grains dairy and rich foods so let's get started first of all fruits fruits have been shown in multiple different ways and multiple different studies to improve your fertility one study out of australia tracked five thousand women who were trying to conceive over time looked

at their diet it was self-reported and women who had three to four servings of fruit per day had a shorter time to conception they were more fertile now of course there's many different things that go into a study but i think this is interesting when patients ask how much fruit or is fruit positive for fertility i can cite this study and say one study did show it was really an important factor in their fertility another study showed higher fruit intake can improve sperm parameters one study looking at diet and fertility is the nurse's health study

i mentioned this in my previous video where i was going through different diets and nutrition for optimizing fertility so go check out that video in the nurse's health study it did show that higher fruit intake was associated with a lower risk of endometriosis endometriosis is an inflammatory condition that can sometimes be associated with painful periods pain with intercourse and infertility you can only really diagnose it if you have a laparoscopy and you can see the inflammation throughout the pelvis and abdomen we're still learning a lot about endometriosis but it can be associated with decreased fertility

and very interesting in this large kind of observational study the nurses health study showing that higher fruit intake decreases the risk of endometriosis so a little note on fruit it sounds like fruit is great for fertility for people with eggs and people with sperm just be careful and wash your food really well it can be full of pesticides organic can have less pesticide exposure but still wash your fruit and vegetables what about whole grains several studies have shown that a diet full of whole grains and less processed grains can improve fertility one study out of

2015 showed improved male factor fertility with diet rich and whole grains another study out of 2019 showed improved success rate with ivf with a diet that's full of whole grains one theory about whole grains is that a diet rich in whole grains helps balance our hormones one study out of 2007 showed that a diet high in whole grains had lower excess estrogen levels and more regular ovulation in the people that were observed so eat your whole grains what about dairy i have had patients who've said i've been told i have to completely cut out dairy

in my diet because it's and causes inflammation and i know it's not good for me well i think everything in balance for some people dairy might be associated with more inflammation but i think with moderation and choosing your dairy products very carefully you can actually enjoy them in moderation the nurses health study showed that if you're if you have dairy in your diet if it's more whole milk or whole fat dairy you have an increased chance of fertility it's fascinating another study in 2013 showed that a diet rich in dairy is associated with a lower

risk of endometriosis endometriosis we just talked about it's inflammatory condition so how do you kind of put those two together well the theory is that dairy can often be high in vitamin d and diets that are high in vitamin d will have a lower risk of endometriosis high fat dairy products have been associated with improved sperm parameters there's a study that shows that at the time of making this video i couldn't find a study that showed a diet high in dairy just across the board would be associated with lower fertility rates in men or women

and so i'm just sharing the evidence that is out there that says probably okay to enjoy your dairy and moderation and if you're choosing it seems to be that choosing whole fat dairy is going to be a better option for your fertility and last what about antioxidants and food antioxidants are really powerful for health in all of our cells including our eggs and sperm and so there are studies showing that diets rich in foods that are high in antioxidants can improve our overall fertility great studies showing that sperm parameters can be improved when the diet

full of antioxidants another studies showing a diet full of antioxidants can be associated with higher success with fertility treatments one quick way to get a power punch of antioxidants is to eat a handful of walnuts um as i said i thought of my husband who happens to be allergic to tree nuts so he will not be doing this but there is a study published in 2012 showing that a handful of walnuts can show improved sperm parameters and improved male factor fertility in men that are following a traditional western diet so that's interesting other ways to

get antioxidant rich foods include green leafy vegetables like spinach pumpkin eggplant peaches apples grapes nuts we just mentioned walnuts almonds whole grains we were just talking about those previously some herbs ginger garlic and even tea and coffee so in moderation but those can be sources of antioxidants so let's recap if you're going to the grocery store and you are going to be buying food and you want it to be fertility friendly think about fruit whole grains some dairy and if you're choosing dairy make it whole fat dairy and then foods that are full of antioxidants

i hope this video is helpful for you like this video if you learned something comment with questions that you have subscribe to this channel and stick around for more learning [Music]