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Ice Cream Boosts FertilityMilk fats, found to enhance ovulation |
By Stefan Anitei, Science Editor
28th of February 2007, 10:47 GMT
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You don't have the so much desired baby?
Specialists believe that maybe you don't get enough pleasure ...
No, no, it's not about sex, but about ice cream ...
A recent research discovered that a low-fat dairy diet inflicts anovulatory infertility, by preventing ovulation. Anovulatory infertility was found to present much higher percentage in women who ate only low-fat dairy products (like skimmed milk and low-fat yoghurt).
The research team at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, US, investigated a sample of more than 18,000 women aged 24 to 42 with no history of infertility. During 8 years, at each two years, the women delivered detailed information
about their infertility problems, when they tried to get pregnant, and the medical reasons for these fertility problems but also about their diet during this time.
Those who ate twice or more low-fat dairy foods daily rose their risk of anovulatory infertility by 85% compared to subjects that consumed less than once low-fat dairy food weekly. Subjects that consumed at least once high-fat dairy food daily, like ice cream or full-fat milk, decreased their infertility risk by more than 25% compared with those who ate maximum once a week such a food item.
"Women trying to conceive should adjust their diet, if only temporarily. They should consider changing low-fat dairy foods for high-fat dairy foods," said Jorge Chavarro, one of the researchers. "The rest of the diet could be adjusted to achieve the same overall calorific intake. Once you are pregnant, you can always switch back."
The researchers are puzzled as other fat types do not have the same effect. "It's either something specific to dairy fat, or a fat-soluble substance present in dairy foods that reduces the risks of infertility," Chavarro says.
"Processing whole milk into low-fat milk may not only strip away the fertility benefits of dairy fat, but may also raise levels of hormones that interfere with female sex organs. To turn whole-fat milk into skimmed milk, whey protein is often added back for taste and coloring. The protein has been found to produce testosterone-like effects in mice," said Chavarro. "It may simply be the over-processing of low-fat foods that is causing increased infertility," said Nanette Santoro, director of the reproductive endocrinology division at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, US.
"The most important factor of all may be maintaining a healthy body weight. There is a clear relationship between increasing weight and infertility," she said. "Women with very low body fat risk infertility. One of the best self-help things women can do is maintaining an optimal body weight - neither too thin nor too large."
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