[Wild Fragaria]

It looks pretty interesting to me that dieting and excercise are not necessarily good for women who are trying to get pregnant


Nature News  Published online: 20 June 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060619-3

A combination of stress, dieting and exercise can dramatically affect female fertility, research on monkeys suggests. Although stress is known to reduce fertility, researchers now warn that if a woman is also dieting and exercising, the effect could be many times greater.

In stressed women, increased levels of a hormone called cortisol block the signal from the brain that tells the ovaries to release eggs, explain Sarah Berga and her colleagues at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.

In severe cases, a woman can stop producing eggs altogether and have her periods cease — a condition called amenorrhoea. About 5-10% of women suffer from amenorrhoea and Berga has previously found that giving such women behavioural therapy to control stress levels can help restore periods and fertility, without the need for specific fertility treatment1.

Amenorrhoea is also caused by severe dieting and exercise, so to find out how these factors interact, Berga subjected a group of female monkeys either to mild stress (by putting them in a different room each day), or to a regime of calorie-restricted diet and exercise. The team presents its findings at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) in Prague.

In each group, 10% of the monkeys stopped having periods. But when the monkeys were subjected to stress as well as diet and exercise, 75% of them stopped having periods.

Berga says the results show that women hoping to conceive should be particularly careful about dieting and exercising when stressed. "A little of each was much worse than a little of one," she says. "They feed off each other."

Having periods stop altogether is relatively rare, but Berga believes that stress levels could be affecting fertility to a lesser extent in many women. She is now starting a study that will track daily hormone levels in the urine of around 3,000 US nurses over the course of a year, to see how many of them have menstrual cycles disturbed by tension.

Researchers are also seeking clear evidence to show whether reducing stress can improve a woman's chances of getting pregnant during fertility treatment. Studies looking at stress in women undergoing IVF have so far been quite small. But Bea Lintsen of Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in The Netherlands and her colleagues presented to the Prague meeting the results of a larger study, involving 1,088 women.

The researchers gave the women questionnaires about their anxiety levels while they were on the waiting list for treatment, and again one day before their eggs were collected. They conclude that stress didn't significantly affect the women's chances of conceiving. "We did not find a relationship between psychological stress and IVF outcome," they told the meeting. "Women who are concerned that their stress might harm their chances of conceiving can be reassured." This study, however, did not look at the additional effects of dieting and exercise.

However a unique study from Israel suggests that at a key time immediately after IVF treatment, using humour to lighten stress levels temporarily might improve the success rate. Shevach Friedler of the Assaf Harofeh Medical Centre in Zerifin is a graduate of the Jacques Lecoq school of mime and theatre in Paris. "My background is in clowning and movement," he says. "I'm also a physician who works in IVF. I thought we could combine the two."

He decided to employ a clown to entertain his patients as they recovered from their treatment. "After embryo transfer, stress could be critical, so we think this is a good time to use clowning to relax them," he says. "Everybody knows that humour is an effective way to reduce stress."

Over ten months, 93 patients aged between 25 and 40 were treated to the clown's performance for 10-15 minutes, shortly after their embryo transfer. Some 36% of them conceived, compared with just 19% in a group who didn't see the clown.

Worried that sophisticated adults might not find a traditional clown amusing, Friedler came up with a comedy chef character who offered the women steak and chocolate cake. "A clown with a red nose is fine for children, but we had to invent a new character for these adult women," he reflects. "The point is to get the women to smile and laugh."

[Nuclear1]

Alright, so most Americans won't be reproducing much.

[Turambar]

good, babies are bad.  and babies trying to live the american lifestyle will only put more strain on world resources.

[Mobius]

The same thing is here in Italy.Our lifestyle is American-like.
In fact there aren't so much babies around...Italian population increases just because of immigration...

PS A Turin Turambar Turun Ambartanen!
Eh eh I read Tolkien too,Turambar!

[Turambar]

yeah, i always thought it was risky taking a tragic hero's name for my own, but the fact that Turambar translates to "Master of Fate" or "Master of Doom" was just too cool to pass up

[IceFire]

Most Western nations have a declining population.  Only from immigration. Canada is shrinking except for immigration from countries with far too many people.

I think the key thing to take away from this is that too much of anything is a bad thing.  I do know of women who were so active in exercise that they ran into this problem.  But they were rediculous...insane even.  Nobody should exercise that much.  You're body needs time to recouperate.  Same with dieting...its very bad to actually diet.  No more than 300 calories reduction in your eating habits at a time otherwise your body goes into "OMG I'm not getting enough food, pack on the fat to preserve energy!!!"  Don't starve your body for stuff that it needs.  Its acclimated to getting food in a certain quantity and consistency...any change you make has to be gradual.  For instance if you were a huge meat eater and suddenly went tofu...that can be a painful experience.

And stress is bad for all sorts of reasons.

In moderation everything is good and a healthy experience.  Otherwise you start screwing stuff up and your body tries to keep you alive as best it can by shutting down stuff thats non essential.

[Colonol Dekker]

There was an article in Todays metro on page 15 on the subject of CBT (Cognitive behaioural Therapy) Lifestyle changes etc causing dormant/inactive egg production to start up again.

Pretty cool..........

[Wild Fragaria]

Keys to bear babies -- the body has to be fit and full energy storage; and a good diet.

A lot of people misunderstood diet and dieting.  Diet is a pattern of what you eat whereas dieting means to regulate the intake of certain types of nutrients, most commonly sugar, salt, and fat.  The original idea of dieting is to help loss excess body fat, but it can be easily over-do.  Over dieting can bring more harm than good because that means a person is basically being put under stress both mentally (craving, desire to find satisfaction) and physically (body has to work harder for energy production).

I think knowing what you’re doing and how much is too much are very important in many aspects.  But to be safe (like Icy pointed out earlier), moderation is generally the key to better living.

[Flipside]

I always bear in mind that the man who created jogging, apparently, died of a Heart Attack, as did Dr Atkinson. Too much of anything is bad for you, from Caffiene to Cardiovascular exercise.

[Colonol Dekker]

Agreed, the body metabolises based on circumstance also.
I think most year 7 kids (english term) learn this>

If a mammal of the human variety (wtf?) has a constant access to food IE 3 square a day, it burns off quicker, but if you fast for a few 8+days and eat again, the body piles it on due to the "WTF i'm out of food, better keep some stored for later" subroutine your brain activates while starving (literally starving i mean)


Obviously its not textbook perfect but thats the gist of it. IIRC of course

[Unknown Target]

I'm pretty sure American population is still increasing, no? (Like, from  births, not immigration).
Although I do know a lot of western countries are declining.

[Mobius]

All Western States are declining.All.
See the last numbers of Science.