Did you know that men’s sperm counts have plunged by 59% in recent years?
With this stat alone it’s no wonder that a record number of couples are having trouble conceiving.
You see, whilst many people seem to think that infertility mainly affects women that is simply not the case. Studies have shown that the causes of fertility issues are split equally between men, women and “unexplained”.
And even If you have been diagnosed with a specific issue if you want to give yourself the best chance of IVF success you would be wise to take steps to get both yourself and your partner in the best possible shape.
We often talk about the 3 keys to IVF success: egg quality/quantity, sperm quality/quantity and womb receptivity.
If any one of these is not optimised your chances of having a baby will decrease.
You’ve probably heard of the saying “the weakest link in the chain“. This is very apt when it comes to IVF.
No matter where the fertility issue lies your chances will only be as good as the weakest link.
So, the last thing you want to happen is to take steps to address one issue only for your chances to be brought down by other things that you may not even be aware of.
Not only that, your test results may show things to be within the normal ranges, which is good, but to give yourself the best chance you can take steps to get to the upper end of those ranges.
The Wrong Foods Damage Sperm
A big reason why sperm counts have dropped is the food we eat. Common foods destroy sperm.
This was proven in a recent study by world-renowned fertility experts at Harvard. They looked at the diets of 2,935 men and discovered that the men that ate a typical modern diet had sperm counts that were 25.6 million lower.
25.6 million doesn’t mean much until you consider that the World Health Organisation defines a normal sperm count as at least 39 million sperm.
25.6 million is a massive reduction! It’s 65.6% lower than the WHO minimum.
Professor Allan Pacey, a leading expert in fertility, said:
“This just shows the power of diet to the way that testicles function. It’s almost certain that this is down to an effect that those with the better diets are taking more antioxidants. With pizza, chips and red meat we know that the antioxidant stress goes up and that is bad for sperm.“
Antioxidants are vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that help keep us healthy and by keeping ourselves healthy our fertility will be at its peak.
So, what can we do?
Eat fewer foods such as pizza, chips, processed and red meat, snacks, sugary drinks and candy/sweets and eat more fish, chicken, vegetables and fruit.
There’s a lot more to the ideal IVF diet but if you and your partner follow this simple guideline you will improve your fertility and your chances of IVF success.
In the IVF Success Plan we give you a complete toolkit to simply and easily tweak your diet to increase your chances significantly.
If you would like to read more details, the study is available here (Dietary patterns and testicular function in young men, 2019 Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology)