Contents:
- Medical Video: Fertility Advice for Women: Dr. Sanjay Agarwal
- Does fasting affect women's fertility?
- What about sperm quality?
Medical Video: Fertility Advice for Women: Dr. Sanjay Agarwal
If you and your partner are working on a pregnancy, there must be concern if fasting will affect fertility. This concern is reasonable because of the possibility of reduced food nutrition in the body due to fasting. So, is fasting really affecting fertility?
Does fasting affect women's fertility?
In a study conducted by researchers at Harvard University in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), it was found that limiting calorie intake in adult female rats can prevent the appearance of abnormalities in pregnancy.
In this study, the scientists monitored two groups of adult female rats aged three months to one year. This age is the age at which the quality of the eggs and fertility of mice is drastically reduced. One group was given as much food as they could during adulthood, while the other group was restricted to food intake for seven months and was fed a lot before the study ended.
As a result, groups of mice that were allowed to eat freely experienced a decrease in the number of eggs produced during ovulation. Whereas, egg cells from a group of mice which are restricted to their food intake are more like the eggs of healthy adult female mice at prime reproductive age.
Research in other animals, such as female monkeys, also yielded the same conclusion. With this, the researchers also expect the same thing to happen to humans, especially adult women, related to their fertility.
So, most likely fasting will not affect women's fertility worse. A study states that fasting has many benefits, including extending women's fertility and even increasing the number of eggs produced.
This is all because of the reduced calorie intake in your body while fasting which reduces blood sugar levels and then affects reproductive hormones. So that, providing smoothness in the menstrual cycle and egg production.
What about sperm quality?
Fasting will also not have a detrimental effect on sperm quality. Fasting can actually improve the function of the reproductive organs. Acid and alkaline levels in the body can be more balanced when fasting so that the function of various organs increases.
With the cessation of food intake for quite a long time, various types of bacteria, viruses, germs, and dangerous cells such as cancer cells will not survive. In addition, fasting also provides an opportunity for the digestive system to be able to rest, so that various poisons, dirt, pulp that can damage health can also be disposed of.
This is what makes the quality of sperm increasingly increasing, because various poisons, dirt, and pulp also decreases during the fasting month. To maintain sperm quality and body health, it is better to consume a balanced nutritional diet is still done by increasing the intake of water after breaking the fast or sahur.
But even this food intake must be balanced by regulating adequate rest periods so that the body's health is maintained.
