Boost Fertility Naturally: Top Foods to Eat

Mark Hyman, MD

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Dr. Mark Hyman
Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Farmacy. First, let's discuss the key nutrients that you need to support fertility and their role in conception and how to optimize your levels by prioritizing certain foods at staples in your diet. And, men, you gotta listen up too. These nutrients aren't just for women to focus on. They're just as important for men to incorporate into their diet as well.

Before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I can help everyone via my personal practice. There's simply not enough time for me to do this at this scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand, well, You, if you're looking for data about your biology, check out function health for real time lab insights. If you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, check out my membership community, Hymen Hive. And if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your routine, visit my website, supplement store for a summary of my favorite and tested products.

Welcome to The Doctor's Farmacy and another edition of health Bites. I'm Doctor. Mark Hyman. Now we often hear the phrase you are what you eat, but many of us don't stop to think about it beyond general wellness. Most of us don't realize that our hormones even our fertility, which is declining depends on what we eat. So let's stop and think about it for a moment.

Did you know that your diet influenced the expression of your DNA and the functionality of every single one of the trillions of cells in your body? Did you know that food serves as the building blocks for our cells, our tissues, and hormones? It's true. Our cell membranes are made from fat. Our hormones are made from cholesterol and amino acids, and their production and functionality is directly influenced by our blood sugar and insulin levels.

Now food and the nutrients that Make it up also serve as the raw materials that create new life. So the phrase you are what you eat is more important than we originally thought, especially when comes to our fertility and our reproductive health. Now the data fully support the link between bad diets and infertility and healthy diets and improve fertility. We know this. And we have the research to back it up and couples who follow an anti inflammatory Whole Foods diet have significantly better fertility outcomes than those who follow the standard American diet, and it makes sense.

Do we want our reproductive function to be regulated by Oreos and ice cream or wild caught salmon and blueberries. Yet conventional medicine fails to recognize this turning to expensive IVF therapies before basic nutrition and lifestyle interventions. Now sometimes fertility treatments are necessary, but the results I've seen from doubling down on diet nutrition and addressing the root causes of infertility has yielded incredible results for my patients. Many, many of them have gotten pregnant when they were told they could not. Now today, we're going to explore the specific nutrients and the dietary strategies to support fertility and how you can use food as medicine to make informed dietary choices that lead to better fertility outcomes.

Now key nutrients and the roles in reproductive health are important to understand. First, let's discuss the key nutrients that you need to support fertility and their role and conception and how to optimize your levels by prioritizing certain foods at staples in your diet. And, man, you gotta listen up too. These nutrients aren't just for women to focus on. They're just as important for men to incorporate into their diet as well.

Now what are the most important nutrients for optimal fertility and having a healthy baby and prevent miscarriages is something called folate or folic acid. Folate is essential for DNA expression. For DNA repair and for something called methylation, which is crucial for regulating which genes are expressed and for regulating cell division and many, many things. And this involves many things that have to do with fertility such as the growth and development of cells, which is key for the neurodevelopment of the baby and the creation of new life. If you're deficient in folate, for example, it's like I mentioned, it can lead to neural tube defects, abdominal imbalances, it can increase something called homocysteine, which also affects infertility.

Now low levels also decreases success of fertilization. So you're less likely to fertilize an egg. Now what can you eat while folate rich foods, beef, liver? Yeah. I like it actually.

Spinach, kale, arugula, black IPs, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, I've cado, broccoli, mustard, greens, eggs, beet citrus, food, walnuts, almonds, and sunflower seeds. You can eat your way to fertility here. But often you might need a supplement with something called methylfolate, which we'll talk about in a bit. Now omega-three fats are also a key part of your health, and they're an essential fatty acid. They're a key part of your cell membranes throughout your body.

So they're your membrane that surround your cells. Basically, the baggy that holds the cell contents in part are made up of these omega 3 fats, which you can only get from your diet. This includes your reproductive organs and cells. And it helps also when you have enough of the omega threes, it helps your cellular response to sex hormones. So your body responds better these hormones in the receptors, including estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, so and you need to have good cell membrane function to be fertile, and many of us don't.

There also are great anti inflammatory properties, of omega threes, which creates a healthy environment for conception, omega threes can increase blood flow to reproductive organs. And for men, by the way, there's a lot of benefits, including better erections. It's great for sperm production. It positively affects sperm quality, sperm count, sperm motility, meaning they swim better, semen volume, and testosterone levels. So all around omega 3 fats are great.

So not bad for a can of sardines or a little fish. Right? Women actually It helps with the uterine lining and good blood flow, which helps you to have a good thick endometrium or uterine lining for implantation of the fertilize embryo. Now omega 3 were chews are great. You can get those, for example, to have high levels of EPA and DHA from small fatty fish that are Kree.

I called the Smash fish, salmon, mackerel anchovies, sardines, and herring. Also, you can get it from plants like ALA, walnuts, GSEs, and seeds, although it's not converted well to EPA and DHA. So you need to take the preformed. If you're vegan, you can take preformed, DHA from algae, which is a great source, but it does give you the full EPA. Also magnesium, we're looking at red cell magnesium on those tests as well.

And magnesium is important because It's involved in over 600 different enzymatic reactions in the body that play a key role in fertility, including DNA regulation, repair, it's important for healthy egg and sperm development. It reduces inflammation and regulates hormone production. It helps balance estrogen and progesterone And it improves insulin sensitivity, which is the root cause of so much infertility, especially through PCOS or polycystic ovarian syndrome. And this problem affects 8 to 13% of reproductive age women. So it's really common and it's a common cause of infertility.

In fact, Walter Willie from Harvard wrote a book called the fertility diet. Where he talks about the role of insulin resistance in infertility. And I've seen this very many times, and you correct the insulin resistance and you correct fertility. Now 70% of women who have this problem are not diagnosed. And it's the leading cause of immaturity out there.

Now Ira is important because it helps reduce hemoglobin, which is the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout your body. Now why is this important? Well, it's key for reproductive health. For immune system function for producing energy, which is really important for the energy manning process of all ovulation. And and if you're a men's training woman, you're more prone to see because and even anemia because you're getting blood loss during your period.

If you have heavy bleeding, it can be worse and so forth. And when you have low iron, that impairs ovulation and fertility. Now get this. 35% of women less than fifty years old are iron deficient. This is from the landfill.

It's a lot of people, a third of women are iron deficient. It's less of a problem, man, because they don't bleed. There's a lot of iron rich foods out there, but nutrient dense animal protein. Now now animal protein covers a lot of the nutrient bases, not just iron. It's got a lot of nutrients for fertility, including zinc, selenium, b vitamins, b 12.

We're gonna cover, their role in fertility next. So high quality, clean protein usually between 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of ideal body weight. And just to be clear, you know, like, 30 grams of protein is about 4 ounces. So if you're thinking about, you know, how many grams of weight. You are, let's say you're a £100 or £120, you know, 30 grams would be 4 ounces.

You need that you know, three times a day, four times a day to get enough. And you get from grass fed beef, lamb, venison, low mercury, wild caught sustainable fish. Like, we talked about the Smash fish, and that also is rich in a lot of nutrients. Right? The fish has got omega threes, vitamin d, selenium, clams and oysters are great.

They have B Twelve and zinc. Pasture raised, omega 3 enriched eggs are a great source as well. Egg yolks have beach 12b6 folate omega threes poultry and pork have thiamine and zinc. So animal foods are a great high quality protein is great. It's full of other nutrients that also support fertility.

Now while we're on the topic of high quality protein, I wanna mention why it's important to focus on optimizing your protein intake first See, adding more protein will help you optimize your diet quality and nutrient density. It also makes you feel full. Promotes what we call satiety, making it harder to overeat sugar and sweets. When you look at, for example, vegans, it would be low levels of animal protein. They tend to create more carbs and sugar and sweets, and that's a problem.

Things like lentils peas are great. Some people can't tolerate the beans, but they can be adapted to over time. But the problem is you can't get enough. You 2 cups of beans to be quick, equal 4 ounces of chicken. So it's just nobody's gonna eat that much beans.

A lot of beans. But you can use high quality protein powders, sprouted peas, competencies. You can supplement with branching amino acids. You need to get the right amino acids in the right amount, to actually help with protein quality. Don't rely on vegan meat substitutes for protein.

They're not meat. They're fake meat and they're ultra processed science projects. They're inflammatory. There's no nutritional benefit except what they sort of quote fortify the foods with. I I wonder why to fortified foods, right?

Because they're so impoverished in the first place. Now b 12 is also important for sex hormone production. It's a really important for ovulation, for regular menstrual cycles, for testosterone production at nails, It's essential for sperm and egg quality for cell division and even early fetal development. Now deficiency in B Twelve can cause a lot of problems. Right?

It can cause with the implantation of the egg, into the uterus with the development of the fetus. It can drive other problems like low sex drive, It can cause high homocysteine levels, which also are associated with reproductive issues. And you can get it be 12 from food, like animal protein, which is the only bioavailable source. Veggie tenders amegas must supplement. There's no way around it.

You can take methylcobolin, but you cannot get it from plant food There are some people you're saving it from different plants, but you just may not be getting a reliable amount. So I I think you've gotta be very careful with that. So Lenny is is also important. No. That's an essential micronutrient that helps fight inflammation.

Now what can you get selending from meat, seafood, Brazil nut about, you know, 4 business units a day usually cover your cover your spending needs. So that's great. Now what else do you need to know about to maintain and optimize fertility? Well, gut health Your gut microbiome plays a huge role in hormone regulation and fertility. Now researchers are discovering there's a lot of roles for gut microbes and from a gut health.

And how it contributes to obesity, to PCOS, to hormone imbalances, and lots more. So it's important to tend your inner garden and I always just talk about that, but it's really important to learn how to take care of your inner garden. And you need gut supporting foods, things like fermented foods that are have probiotics in them. There are other things that are great in there like fiber and and great probiotics. Prebiotic foods are important like fruits and veggies, and you get 8 to 12 servings of nonstarchy fruits and veggies.

Certain gluten free, whole grains can be helpful. Christopher's vegetables. Also really important for the gut health. Because some residuals like broccoli, collards, kale, brussels sprouts, collard greens, they help to regulate excess estrogen in the body. The help with estrogen dominance, which is something that is happens commonly is women enter their later reproductive life where they get higher estrogen than progesterone.

Other relative or absolute. And that can help lower maybe glucuronities, which is a really important, compound that's produced by certain bacteria or gut that can actually lead to higher estrogen levels and more problem with cancer and fertility. So there's a lot of really important things to to kind of consider. Also, there's another class of foods that are great for your gut, which is the garlic family, garlic, onions, leeks, shallots, they're anti inflammatory. Certain gluten free cold grains can add fiber like, Amyrin, theft, buckwheat, the chameleon, terry buckwheat.

I like my Himalayan Tardier Buck with sprouted powder, which is great. I put it in my smoothie. While the rice is great. Oh, it's technically not a grain. Black rice, quinoa, all they're fine, fermented, probiotic rich foods are great, sauerkraut, sheep yogurt, kefir, kimchi, Natto, Tempeh.

So all these are great for helping your gut health. So you really learn how to to take care of your inner garden, and you might even need to take, probiotic supplements Now if you have a messed up gut, it's important to work with somebody on this. If you have leaky gut or hurdle value, you wanna work with a good Functional Medicine practitioner to fix it. And you need to learn how to do that with the 5 r program, which is avoiding the minimizing the foods that create problems. Using pre and probiotics and gut repair tools.

Alright. So once you've, dialed in your nutrition and you're focusing on eating specific foods to support your hormones, your reproductive health, your sperm and egg health. It's really important to clean up your diet and not just add the good stuff, but take out the bad stuff and reduce your intake more problematic foods that cause insulin resistance, oxidative stress and inflammation, which definitely reduce fertility and and cause impaired fertility. And what are those foods? No surprise.

If you're listening to me, right, ultra processed foods, basically foods that contain ingredients that you wouldn't have in your kitchen and that are made in factories and are deconstructed science projects. You do not wanna eat those even though they may look like food. They're not actually food. By definition. Refined grains, refined flours, added sugars, all bad.

Now potato chips, crackers, pretzels, candy, microwave popcorn muffins, donuts, sandwich, bread. I mean, it's not even really bread. Cookies, flavored yogurts, puddings, These foods widely bad. Well, they contribute to the epidemic of metabolic dysfunction, which affects 93% of the population and is somewhere on the trajectory of insulin resistance, the lead to oxidative stress. They reduce the chance of fertility.

They increase, PCOS. They cause sexual dysfunction, erectile dysfunction, and poor blood flow. Yep. That's true guys. That's what happens when you chunk.

And and it contains a lot of forever chemicals, these endocrine disrupting chemicals that you don't wanna be having in your body. Like BPA and others, you wanna get rid of all those. Those are very much significant endocrine disruptors. We call this whole class of chemicals endocrine disruptors because they disrupt your hormone system. And they also contain a lot of bad stuff, chemical additives, artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, thickeners that all contribute to inflammation through damaging the gut lining leading to a leaky gut.

They also often contain low quality fats like trans fats and inflammatory like soybean oils, sunflower, canola, vegetable seed oils, gmo corn, soy, all that crap. Sugar sweetened beverages, definitely a no no because that'll drive in some resistance. Including sodas, diet soda, all the artificial sweeteners work in a different way, fruit juice, green juices, unless they're truly green juices because a lot of them are just jacked with pineapple juice sugary fruit stuff, which is just as bad. Of course, there may be more antioxidants or the good stuff in there, but it's a lot of bad stuff. Obviously, don't have soft drinks, lemonade, iced teas that are sweet alcohols, sports drinks, meal replacement drinks, protein drinks, like boost, fair life, core, protein powers, slim fester, all garbage.

There are good plant proteins out there. There are good animal protein products out there, but just be careful. And also be careful with the plant milks. They can be flavored sweetened. They can have a most fire stickeners.

They can be some good ones, but make sure they're just simple ingredients like almonds, water, salt, for example. Energy drinks definitely do not have those. Those are full of colors, dyes, artificial sweeteners, flavored coffees. I mean, you go to Starbucks, you're getting tons of sugar, probably as much sugar as a can of coke or sometimes more depending on what you're getting. Fruit juices, creamers that are weird creamers, just stay away from all that.

Also, you wanna stay away from conventional dairy. Dairy is a hugely hormonally disruptive food unless you're eating sheep or goat cheese, which is less, most conventional dairy as antibiotics hormones pesticides, a lot of hormone disrupting compounds in them. And it's one of the things for women who have menstrual issues or hormonal issues. I I very strongly recommend they avoid Kathy can be fine, but be careful of too much. You can wear out your adrenal glands.

Alcohol, definitely not a good thing. For fertility. It it affects your, obviously, liver and your ability to regulate hormones for your liver can cause a dysregulation of estrogen, testosterone, many other hormones, And now alcohol and consumption in men can lead to lower testosterone levels and higher estrogen levels, which can cause all sorts of issues like lower libido fertility issues. Again, increase, breast size in men. It can cause loss of hair in the body.

It's just not a good thing. So What are the practical dietary adjustments for enhancing fertility? Let's go through them a little bit, one by one here. What are the practical tips for creating a diet that's incorporating fertility boosting foods into your everyday meals. Build your meals around protein and veggies and fiber, which makes you feel full and less like it overeat.

Try food stacking. Start the day with protein and fat for breakfast. You can have a savory breakfast. You're gonna have a protein shake. That's really fine to do.

I mean, I I I I don't know why we've sort of in America got into a place where we think share for breakfast is a good idea, but it's the worst possible thing that's ever happened to us. So what can you have for breakfast? What does that mean? Well, eggs are great. They're rich in vitamin d, b12 and protein.

They're great for hormone balance. You can have an oblet with spinach, tomatoes, added folate, vitamin c. You can have poached or hard boiled eggs. I like, for example, shashuka, which you can buy kind of jarred version and I put the eggs in there and put it in the oven and cooked in, like, 10, 15 minutes pretty quick. Don't eat those quick cooking oats.

Get rid of those. You're gonna eat oats only have steel cut oats, but you wanna add protein and fat. So flaxseeds, chia seeds, almonds, nuts, You can also put in some butter in there, grass fed butter, or some other kind of oil like flax oil. You wanna get protein fat and fiber in there. GSE PUTings, a great breakfast, coconut yogurt, very smoothie with protein powder.

I like that one. It's my favorite. What about snacks? Well, I don't really snack that much, but if you're hungry, nuts and seeds are great, handful of almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds are great snacks that have zinc, selenium, lots of good fats. Meat sticks are great.

Like the Maui Dewey, paleo Valley. They're great. Raw veggies and homemade hummus is an option. Low glycemic fruit is fine. Berries, apples, cherries, citrus fruits, What about lunch and dinner?

Well, salads are great. They're, you know, you can you put a base of leafy greens, like, arugula or just, dark leafy greens, mixed mixed greens, you can use spinach or kale to increase folate intake, you know, avocado for healthy fats, sprinkle some sunflower seeds for vitamin e. And I I I basically use olive oil. So you get a fat salad with nuts and protein and fat. You can even add a can of sardines or salmon on there.

It's also great. You can include fatty fish, like salmon mackerel, I get some of the canned salmon. Or macro. I love that with my salad. That helps boost your omega threes.

It helps firm quality and your reproductive health. Now if you're if you're having desserts or treats, fine. But choose something that's kind of good for you. Like, dark chocolate, like 70% cocoa as a treat has lots of antioxidants and improves mood doesn't give you too much sugar and, it helps, benefit your hormones, melt dark chocolate and cold blueberries, raspberries, or almonds. You can freezing to make a healthy dessert, or you can sign up for my recipe newsletter, Mark's Kitchen, which I always have healthy recipes and desserts, like Fudgy, almond butter brownies, chocolate olive oil mousse with candied walnuts yum yum yum yum.

There's gonna be a link in the show notes for the recipes and and to sign up for my Mark's Kitchen newsletter. Featuring new recipes every week delivered straight to your inbox, and you can go to my website, doctor hyman.com to sign up as well. My new cookbook, young favorite cookbook has a ton of recipes in as well. Then we'll put the link in the show notes. For women, it's important to supplement and fill nutrient caps.

For example, a prenatal vitamin is important. Even before you get pregnant. You're just preparing to get pregnant, which is, there's a lot of them out there like thorns, great, has a great product of prenatal vitamin. It's got methylated b vitamins, folate, 5 methyl folate, not folic acid, which is the crappy form. It's not well utilized by the body found in most prenatal vitamins.

40%, 35 to 40% of the population has a mutation in the gene called MTHFR that affects your ability to utilize the synthetic folic acid, which is found in prenatal supplements. So you don't you're not even getting the benefit. Do you wanna take the pre formed methylfolate? It also needs methylcobalamin or b 12. The right form omega threes are really important at least a 1000 to 2000 milligrams with EP and DHA every day.

It's great product that you I like the omega 3 rejuvenate from big bold health. For men, you wanna also wanna take stuff, not just a woman. It helps fertility for men too. So you guys aren't out of the picture. So a multivitamin and mineral, a vitamin d, omega threes, a good levels of of a a multi that making it fully be 12, zinc, really important to get your food, the right foods, not eat the wrong foods to take the right supplements, and to optimize your metabolism to actually help you achieve a healthy pregnancy.

Really important. We have a lot more control over our hormones and our regulation of our reproductive life than we think. It's important for you to take control of that, and that's really why I did this podcast today. I hope you found it helpful. And whether you're just getting started on your health journey, Whether you're actually trying to have a baby or one day wanna have one in the future by understanding how different foods and nutrients affect your hormonal balance and reproductive health you can make better choices that support the reproductive health and fertility.

Thanks for listening today. If you love this podcast, please share it with your friends and family. Leave a comment on your own best practices on how you upgrade your health and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And follow me on all social media channels at Doctor Mark Hyman, and we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Farmacy. For more information on today's episode, please check out my new video and audio podcast, health hacks.

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Again, that's doctor hyman.comforward/marks Thank you again, and we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Farmacy. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at Delta Center and my work at Cleveland Clinic And Function Health where I'm the chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guest opinions now that myself and other podcast endorsement of views or statements are my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional.

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