More and more couples find they have to seek help when trying to conceive.
Aside from the fact that we are increasingly older when we opt to start our families, doctors are keen to find out what else could be behind the steady rise infertility issues.
Their latest discovery? The starchy diets we are all eating could be one of the major culprits, it seems.
According to The Telegraph, fertility experts are now saying women should opt for a low-carb diet when trying to conceive – because doing so could increase the chance of success by five times.
In fact, experts are claiming if you are looking to get pregnant, you should be limit your consumption of carbs to just one portion a day – and wave goodbye to all white bread, pasta and breakfast cereals.
Executive director of fertility group IVI, Dr Gillian Lockwood, explained yesterday that she now advises all patients to cut their carbohydrate intake, amid a growing body of evidence linking such foods to impaired fertility, a truth echoed by other fertility clinics too, who have all begun enrolling patients on nutrition courses and even cookery classes.
“They should be eating plenty of fresh vegetables and protein and limiting their carbohydrate intake to just one group and portion a day,” Lockwood advises.
“I tell my patients that if they are going to have toast for breakfast, then that is their carbs for the day. They cannot then have a sandwich for lunch and pasta for dinner. If they want a pasta supper that has to be their carb, or if they want a jacket potato for lunch, then that is it.”
Trials in the US have backed up these suspicions, showing evidence that a typical western diet, with high reliance on convenience foods, high in carbohydrates, badly affects a woman’s reproductive system, reducing the quality of her eggs.
In a study conducted at the Delaware Institute for Reproductive Medicine (DIRM) in Newark, researchers discovered that in a trial of 120 women, 58 percent of those in the “low carb” group (meaning at least one-quarter of their diet was protein) went on to have a baby, while in the ‘high carb’ group, only 11 percent achieved success with their IVF treatment.
