What is Infertility?
If you haven’t been able to get pregnant after one year of trying, you can be diagnosed with infertility. For women over 35 years old, infertility can be diagnosed after 6 months of trying to get pregnant unsuccessfully. However, despite what society tells us, many couples can still have a baby much later in life. It’s less about your age and more to do with how healthy you are. Read on to find out how our health, and diet in particular, plays a part in fertility.
Fertility and Menopause
Menopause poses a significant threat to women who want to have a baby. Menopause is a natural occurrence in women’s lives during which hormonal changes terminate their fertile period. This event is significant to women who wish to have a baby because after menopause their ovaries can no longer function in order to conceive a baby. Women who are postmenopausal can still successfully have a healthy baby, but only if they are provided the eggs, such as through IVF. However, this isn’t the only solution.
Delaying Menopause
Menopause can be delayed by following a healthy, fertility-friendly diet. This is because your hormones are affected by your health, and in particular, your diet. So, as menopause is caused by changes in hormones, eating the right diet can help keep your hormones in balance and therefore cause menopause to occur later on, giving you more time to conceive a baby.
Fertility and Age
Despite common belief, being fertile is less to do with your age and more to do with your health. Society tells us that women who are 35 or older are too old to have a baby. However, if their body is healthy then their reproductive organs will be too, no matter what age they are. So any women who hasn’t yet reached menopause can be perfectly capable of having a baby if they keep their body healthy.
Time is often blamed for people’s bad health, saying it “comes with aging”. But facing illnesses and health issues as an adult may not be purely due to “aging” but to how well you have, and are, treating your body. “Only about 35% of the aging process is genetic. That means 65% is in your hands literally.” (Source: Cherniske, Stephen (2003) The Metabolic Anti-Ageing Plan, Piatkus, p. 6.). Knowing this means it’s largely up to you how healthy and fertile you want to be.
Understanding Aging
We can understand this better by taking a closer look at how and why the body deteriorates over time.
When cells in the body divide to make two new cells, these new cells can either be better, the same, or worse. It all comes down to the duplication of the DNA in the cell, which happens before the cell divides. During DNA replication errors can occur occasionally. The cell has elaborate repair systems involving many many enzymes to fix these mistakes. However, with trillions of cells replicating their DNA all the time, some errors go by unchecked. When these mistakes occur in a cell it can cause the cell to stop functioning correctly or die. This causes what we know as aging, right down to every little wrinkle. However, if we eat the right foods then we can give our body the nutrients it needs in order to make less mistakes and to be able to repair mistakes that are made, ultimately reducing how much we age. This doesn’t just mean less wrinkles, it also means our reproductive organs will stay as healthy as possible so we can stay fertile.
Diet for Reducing Aging and Optimizing Fertility
Below are key nutrients to include in your diet to reduce damage to DNA and ultimately keep your body young, healthy and fertile.
Increase your intake of antioxidants.
Antioxidants help reduce the damage caused by free radicals in the cell by basically buddying up with them to keep them out of trouble. Antioxidants can be gained from organic fruits and vegetables. They also come from supplements of vitamin-E, selenium and alpha-lipoic acid. Vitamin C is good as well, for men in particular. Cells also produce their own super antioxidant called glutathione. Certain supplements can increase your levels of glutathione, such as NAC (n-acetyl glutathione), milk thistle, glutamine, and B vitamins.
Stop putting toxins into your body.
Alcohol, heavy metals, caffeine, artificial sweeteners, smoke, pesticides, drugs and food additives can all contribute to cell damage and reduce your fertility. To improve your fertility, eat a diet consisting of pure organic plant foods and drinks and avoid all the other toxins listed above (such as by not smoking, drinking alcohol, eating processed foods etc) in order to protect your body from these potentially harmful toxins.
Help stabilize your DNA by eating organic plant foods rich in sirtuins.
Sirtuins are proteins which help stabilize your DNA, making them important anti-aging compounds. In plants, sirtuins are produced in higher amounts when the plants are under stress, so plants grown organically (without the help of pesticides and herbicides) contain higher amounts of sirtuins. It’s recommended to include as much fresh organically-grown produce in your diet as possible to support your DNA and keep your body young and healthy.
Increase the quality control procedures in your cells.
- Make sure to include enough zinc and folic acid in your diet. These are both important nutrients to support your cells in combating mistakes that may occur in DNA replication. You can obtain zinc by eating plenty of nuts and seeds, and parsley, spinach and asparagus, or by taking a supplement. You can get folic acid from spinach, and other leafy greens, or you can take a supplement of this too.
- Quit caffeine. Caffeine can interfere with the normal cell replication process. Basically, it speeds things up and this can cause errors to be missed which the cell would usually have picked up.
Drink plenty of water.
Water is a crucial element in DNA and in cell communication and dehydration can lead to increased cell damage. Therefore it’s important that you drink enough water, at least 2 (preferably 3) litres every day.
Traditional Chinese Medicine for Infertility
At Centre of Balance our practitioners have a lot of experience treating infertility. We use a holistic approach, taking into account all aspects of your body and lifestyle before putting together a treatment plan to help you regain balance in your body and increase your fertility. Acupuncture and other Traditional Chinese Medicine techniques can help to treat your condition effectively but without any harmful side effects. We always recommend a fully plant based whole food diet to accompany your treatment to give your body the best chance to heal and function optimally.
Conclusion
Infertility is a common issue that many couples face, but the good news is that you can combat aging and infertility by simply changing your diet. Eating a fully plant based diet rich in organic fruits and vegetables and containing all the right fertility boosting nutrients can have a huge positive effect on your body, keeping you young, healthy and most importantly, fertile.
For more information about how we at Centre of Balance can help you with your fertility click here.
References
This article was based off the book “The Fertility Diet” by Sarah Dobbyn
Dobbyn, S. (2008). The fertility diet: And how to maximize your chances of having a baby at any age. Simon & Schuster.