Want to get Pregnant?

DRINKING WHOLE fat milk and eating ice cream appears to be better for women trying to become pregnant than a diet consisting of low-fat dairy products such as skimmed milk and yogurts. The new research was published in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal, Human Reproduction. Researchers in the US found a link between a low-fat dairy diet and increased risk of infertility due to lack of ovulation. The results of the study, which monitored 18,555 women between 24 and 42 in the United States who tried to or became pregnant between 1991 and 1999, sharply challenges US government dietary guidelines.

  

Their study showed that if women ate two or more servings of low-fat dairy foods a day, they increased their risk of ovulation related infertility by more than 85 per cent compared to women who ate less than one serving of low fat dairy foods a week . If women ate at least one serving of high-fat dairy food a day they reduced their risk of anovulatory infertility by more than a quarter (25 per cent) compared to women who consumed one or fewer high-fat dairy servings a week.

Once pregnant, then probably switch back to low-fat dairy foods as it is easier to limit intake of saturated fat by consuming low-fat dairy foods. The researchers believe that the presence of a fat-soluble substance, which improves ovarian function, might explain the lower risk of infertility from high fat dairy foods. The intake of dairy fat, or a fat-soluble sub stance present in dairy foods, may partly explain the inverse association between high-fat dairy foods and anovulatory infertility.
Previous studies had suggested that lactose (a sugar found in milk) might be associated with anovulatory infertility but a study found neither a positive nor negative association for this, and nor was there any association between intake of calcium, phosphorus or vitamin D and anovulatory infertility.

Low-fat and infertility

• Women who ate two or more servings of low-fat dairy foods a day increased their risk of ovulation-related infertility by more than four-fifths.
• Researchers believe that the presence of a fat-soluble substance, which improves ovarian function, might explain the lower risk of infertility from high-fat dairy foods.