Rocky Road to Fertility

Women struggling to get pregnant might want to stop at Ben & Jerry’s on their way to the fertility clinic, according to new findings from the Nurses Health Study at the Harvard School of Public Health. The study reveals that women who reported eating one or more servings of high-fat dairy food—like ice cream—each day were 27 percent less likely than other women to suffer from anovulation (lack of ovulation). On the other hand, those who ate two or more low-fat dairy products a day were more than twice as likely as other women not to ovulate.

A few factors may contribute to this, according to Liz Lipski, PhD, CCN, of Hawthorne University. First, butterfat contains vitamin A, which is essential for fertility. Second, we rely on fat to make our sex hormones, which maintain the right chemical balance in the reproductive system.

But the study is not conclusive, Lipski says, because it didn’t ask other important questions. “What else do women who eat low-fat dairy eat? What other kinds of lifestyle factors do they have—are they dieting more or eating more restricted foods like artificial sweeteners?” she asks. So you might want to hold off adding a daily sundae to your meal plan, but flagging down Mister Softee for an occasional treat is still OK.