Poor diet is driving increasing fertility problems in Britain, the US and other wealthy countries, a leading expert warned last night.

Emerging evidence suggests that even slim women may struggle to start a family if they have a high-fat diet.

And men are likely to be less virile if they eat unhealthy foods packed with trans fats, new research suggests.

Three new studies to be presented American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in Baltimore today suggest that high-fat food damages ovaries, produces poor quality embryos and reduce sperm counts.

Dr Edgar Mocanu, consultant gynaecologist at Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, said that poor diet was ‘without a doubt’ one of the key reasons that more couples struggle to have children today than in the past.

This is a particular problem for men, he said, with average sperm counts dropping in wealthy countries over the last three decades.

The decline has been so profound that the World Health Organisation was forced to drop threshold of what it considered to be ‘male infertility’ from 20 million sperm cells per millilitre to 15 million.

‘High-fat diets are part of the problem,’ Dr Mocanu told the Daily Mail last night.

‘This draws attention to the fact that we shouldn’t just concentrate on women in fertility, it can also be a male issue,’ he said.

‘Diet plays a large role and this is true for men and for women.’

Dr Mocanu was responding to research which examined the impact on fertility rates of high trans fat intake in men trying to conceive through IVF.

A team from the Harvard School of Public Health found that fertilisation rates were lowest in couples where men had diets highest in trans fats.

Trans fats are used to improve the taste, texture and shelf-life of processed foods.

The fats, which are used in some margarines, sweets, biscuits and cooking oil, have already been banned in Austria, Iceland, Switzerland and Denmark – but Britain has repeatedly refused to follow suit.

The Harvard team found that men with the lowest trans fat intake had 83 per cent chance of getting their partner pregnant, compared with 47 per cent for those with the highest.

A second study by the universities of North and South Carolina suggested that women who ate more fried food had low levels of viable embryos and fertilisation rates.

And a third study, by the University of Colorado in Denver, found that mice fed a high-fat diet had damaged ovaries and poor fertility rates, even if they were not overweight.

Male fertility expert Professor Allan Pacey of Sheffield University added: ‘Most of the evidence suggests that men who have so called “good diets” generally have better sperm than men who eat unhealthy food.

‘I think everyone knows that healthy diets are always best and we should do what we can to encourage healthy living across the patch if couples are trying to conceive.’

Dr Richard Kennedy, a gynaecologist in Coventry and former president of the British Fertility Society, added: ‘Obesity is a major public health issue and there is no doubt it is related to certain aspects of fertility, specifically egg production and quality.

‘Our advice to anyone presenting for IVF is that if they are over our weight threshold they should make efforts to reduce their weight.’ 

Written By Ben Spencer

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