Boost Your Fertility: How a Heart-Healthy Diet Can Improve Your Chances of a Healthy Pregnancy after Fertility Treatments
It makes sense that a diet recommended by the American Heart Association supports heart health. Recent research has also found following this heart-healthy diet prior to conception was associated with a reduced risk of pregnancy loss after fertility treatments.
Many factors can contribute to pregnancy loss, so I want to be clear that IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT if you experience a pregnancy loss. At the same time, many clients reach out to me for nutrition advice because they want to do what they can to improve their chances of a successful pregnancy.
A study published last month in JAMA found that following a healthy diet pattern prior to pregnancy was associated with a reduced risk of pregnancy loss (1). The study, which took place at Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility Center, included 612 women aged 18-45 undergoing 1572 infertility treatment cycles, including intrauterine insemination (IUI) and in vitro fertilization (IVF) with or without intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).
The healthy dietary patterns that were associated with a reduced risk of pregnancy loss included the American Heart Association (AHA) diet, several versions of the Mediterranean diet (Trichopoulou, alternate and Panagiotakos), Healthy Eating Index (HEI) and Alternate Healthy Eating Index (aHEI), and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH). While all of these diets showed a slight reduction in risk of pregnancy loss, the AHA diet exhibited the most significant benefit. In other words, the closer a woman's diet aligned with the AHA recommendations, the lower her chances of experiencing pregnancy loss.
The AHA dietary pattern (2) encourages:
- a wide variety of fruits and vegetables
- whole grains and products made primarily with whole grains
- protein mostly from plant based sources like legumes and nuts, fish and seafood, low-fat or nonfat dairy, and lean, unprocessed meat and poultry (for those who eat meat and poultry)
- liquid non-tropical vegetable oils (eg more olive oil, less coconut oil)
- minimally processed foods
- minimized intake of added sugars
- foods prepared with little or no salt
- limited or preferably no alcohol intake
Interestingly, the study didn't explore the "pro-fertility diet," which has been associated with better implantation rates, clinical pregnancies, live births, and a lower risk of pregnancy loss (3).
If you're interested in learning more about this and other dietary patterns linked to improved fertility, both for natural conception and fertility treatment outcomes, check out my Fertility Foundations nutrition course. In the course, I review these studies in more detail and provide practical action items. (NOTE this specific study is not yet included in the course due to its recent publication, but it aligns with previous research studies covered in the course.)
Key takeaway: While adhering to the AHA diet may reduce your risk of pregnancy loss after IVF, don't stress about trying to have the "perfect" fertility diet. There's no one-size-fits-all approach to eating for fertility, and many of the foods recommended in the AHA diet overlap with other nutritious eating patterns that have been linked to improved fertility outcomes.
SOURCES
1) Salas-Huetos A et al. Women’s Adherence to Healthy Dietary Patterns and Outcomes of Infertility Treatment (2023) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2808489
2) The American Heart Association Diet and Lifestyle Recommendations https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/nutrition-basics/aha-diet-and-lifestyle-recommendations
3) Gaskins A et al. Dietary Patterns and Outcomes of Assisted Reproduction (2019) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6545142/
