Is there a link between dietary patterns and infertility treatment outcomes?

Adherence to the American Heart Association (AHA) diet is inversely associated with clinical pregnancy loss in women achieving pregnancy during the course of infertility treatment, according to a study published online Aug. 18 in JAMA Network Open.

Albert Salas-Huetos, Ph.D., from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues examined whether women's adherence to an a priori-defined dietary pattern promoted for prevention of chronic conditions is associated with infertility treatment outcomes in a prospective cohort study. A total of 612 women undergoing infertility treatment cycles, including intrauterine insemination cycles and in vitro fertilization with or without intracytoplasmic sperm injection, were included.

The researchers observed no association between adherence to the eight a priori dietary patterns with probability of clinical pregnancy or live birth following in vitro fertilization or intrauterine insemination. Adherence to the AHA dietary pattern was inversely associated with risks for total and clinical pregnancy loss.

The adjusted probabilities of pregnancy loss in the lowest and highest quartile of the AHA dietary pattern were 0.41 and 0.28, respectively, among women who became pregnant during the course of infertility treatment. The corresponding adjusted probabilities were 0.30 and 0.15 for clinical pregnancy loss. For all other dietary patterns, except for the plant-based diet pattern, a similar pattern was observed.

"Our findings provide useful information that can be used in the design of future studies aimed at testing the effects of nutritional interventions on human fertility," the authors write.