Eating a lot of fruit can help women conceive new study suggests

There is something to that old 'an apple a day' saying, after all, it seems. In fact, according to a new study, we should be eating plenty of apples a day – or other fruits, especially if we are trying to get pregnant. Researchers who recently looked at more than 5,500 women from Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand found those who consumed the least fruit were 50 percent more likely to be infertile.

And compared to women who ate fruit three or more times a day in the month before conception, women who ate fruit less than one to three times a month took half a month longer to conceive.

If you are a fast-food lover, however, the results of the study will be bad new news to you, as researchers found that women who consumed fast food four or more times a week took nearly a month longer to become pregnant. As well as this, their risk of infertility also doubled from eight to 16 per cent.

Interestingly, the amount of green leafy vegetables and fish made no difference to conception times. Professor Claire Roberts, of the University of Adelaide, Australia, who led the study, said to the Telegraph: "These findings show that eating a good quality diet that includes fruit and minimising fast food consumption improves fertility and reduces the time it takes to get pregnant."