Why Eating This 3 x's a Week Will Improve Your Shot at Conception by 3
Eat those avocados ladies making babies, studies show they have many benefits when trying to conceive. Also, guacamole, yummy, but leave the gluten-heavy chips behind and stay tuned for our post on why!
THE BOTTOM LINE
According to a new study, eating avocados (also avocado oil) triples (3.4 x's to be exact) a woman's chance of getting pregnant through in vitro fertilization, or IVF. Jeiran, our resident expert, got me to eat them in the morning to stabilize my energy and mood. The healthy fat has a slower burn rate than something like a slice of bread with its higher glucose index and quicker energy crash. Stabilization of energy, mood, and hormones are key to healthy conception.
THE TAKEAWAY
Eat Mediterranean; olive oil, sunflower oil, nuts and seeds, all containing high levels of monounsaturated fat.
RECIPE: Mo's Morning What Up
A heavily seeded bread with a high fiber count (I like the thin sliced Dave's Killer bread, also murder bread always makes me smile)
Smash Avocado on your murder bread
Drizzle avo (or olive) oil lightly over it
Sprinkle Himalayan pink sea salt (better mineral properties in the pink)
Dress with hot pepper flakes
What's your favorite pro-conception way to eat an avo?
THE NITTY GRITTY
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health studied the fat intake of 147 women, who were mostly in their 30s and undergoing IVF treatment, and found that women who ate the highest amounts of monounsaturated fat were 3.4 times more likely to have a child after IVF compared to those who ate the lowest amounts.
However, women who ate the most saturated fats typically found in butter and red meat produced the least amount of good eggs for use in fertility treatment. High saturated fat intake has also been linked to poorer male fertility, including lower sperm counts.
Researchers believe that monounsaturated fats, already proven to protect the heart, may also improve fertility by lowering inflammation in the body.
"The best kinds of food to eat are avocados, which have a lot of monounsaturated fat and low levels of other sorts of fat, and olive oil," lead author Professor Jorge Chavarro, presenting at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Istanbul, Turkey, said, according to AFP.
He noted that because the study was small, additional research is needed before doctors should start recommending to latest findings to women trying to get pregnant.
"While these results are interesting, this is the first time to our knowledge that dietary fats have been linked to treatment outcome in IVF," Chavarro said in a statement. "So it is important that our results are replicated in other studies before making strong recommendations about fat intake to women having infertility treatment."
"Different types of fat are known to have different effects on biological processes which may influence the outcome of assisted reproduction - such as underlying levels of inflammation or insulin sensitivity. However, it is not clear at this moment which biological mechanisms underlie the associations we found," he concluded.
*Medical Daily; Eating Avocados More Than Triples IVF Pregnancy Success Rate; Jul 10, 2012 02:49 PM By Christine Hsu
(No conflicts of interest present in the above source)