Gut Health and Fertility: What You Need to Know
What organ system do you think of when you think of fertility? You think of the reproductive organs like the uterus and testes—but what about your gut?
Your gut health plays a major role with fertility and infertility. This is why nutrition is important for getting pregnant.
Gut health refers to the type of bacteria that lines that passageway of your gastrointestinal tract starting at the mouth down to the rectum. There are good and bad bacteria. I know what you’re thinking: What! There’s good bacteria that we want in our body?
Good and bad bacteria
Yes! There are. There is more bacteria in and on our body than there are of our own cells.
The good bacteria in our gut and vaginal tract have many positive qualities. It helps our immune system fight off bad bacteria and viruses and assists in the proper digestion of food and absorption of many vital vitamins. The good bacteria in our vaginal tract help protect from infections such as BV and yeast.
When there is more bad bacteria (also known as pathogens) than good bacteria it could lead to your gut becoming more permeable which has been called “leaky gut.”
The theory behind leak gut is that pathogens can pass through the gut lining and into your bloodstream instead of being broken down in the gut and passed through in your stool. This leads to a buildup of pathogens in your bloodstream that may increase inflammation in your body.
Inflammation is your body’s way of sounding the alert when the body is under attack. When the body thinks it is under attack, it tends to focus its energy on reducing inflammation and not on getting pregnant.
Why your gut matters for nutrition
Leaky gut can contribute to health issues because it decreases proper digestion of food and absorption of vitamins and minerals—thus causing nutrient deficiencies—and leading to our bodies not being equipped with the fuel they need for the chemical reactions necessary for balancing our reproductive hormones and making sure the body is functioning optimally.
Regulation of our hormones is key when trying to get pregnant and vitamins and minerals are part of this process. Hormones and the risk of infertility
Research has shown that increased systemic inflammation (i.e. when you are inflamed all the time) increases the risk of infertility.
This is because inflammation can lead to estrogen dominance and the decrease of progesterone. Progesterone is a key hormone in preparing the lining of the uterus for pregnancy and maintaining a healthy pregnancy.
Improving gut health
So, now you’re probably wondering what you can do now to help improve your gut health and get more good bacteria. That’s a great question! Good bacteria is in many food items and also in supplements called probiotics.
If you break down the word probiotic you will find that “pro” is from a Latin word meaning “for” and “biotic” is the Greek word for “life”. Probiotics are “pro-life” meaning they can help heal your gut health by adding diversity to the microbiome. It is a key to nurturing healthy nutrition.
Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces boulardii are great examples of good bacteria we want in our body. Both of these good bacteria live in our gut, but also along the vaginal tract. Research shows a probiotic with Lactobacillus can stabilize the microbiome of the female reproductive tract, which increases fertility. Lactobacillus rhamnosus is a probiotic that has been found in the vaginal tract and is often recommended for conditions such as yeast infections and bacterial vaginosis.
Saccharomyces boulardii is a yeast derived from the skin of plants like lychee and mangosteen. This probiotic is believed to treat a wide range of gastrointestinal disorders because it boosts the immune system and aids in digestion. Because Saccharomyces boulardii benefits the gut it helps decrease leaky gut, improves food digestion and absorption, and leads to more balanced hormones which increase the chances of conceiving. (Note: Those who have a yeast allergy may be advised to avoid the use of Saccharomyces boulardii.)
Food sources of probiotics
You can also increase your intake of natural healthy probiotics in your diet by eating fermented foods.
A clinical Stanford study found that a diet high in fermented foods leads to more diversity of your microbiome in your gut leading to a decrease of inflammation and an increase in immune response. Nineteen inflammatory proteins were measured in blood that showed a significant decrease; one inflammatory protein being interleukin 6 which is correlated with diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes, and chronic stress.
Some great choices of fermented food are kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, kefir, fermented vegetables, fermented cottage cheese and yogurt. My two favorites are kombucha and a good plain yogurt. A lot of highly processed sweetened yogurts don’t have much in the way of good bacteria.
Fertility and gut health
There is some research showing probiotics can increase pregnancy rate (although not significantly). For men, the results showed that probiotics can increase sperm motility. In a reverse look at gut health and fertility another study found 30-70% of women classified as “infertile” have endometriosis, and there is a correlation between endometriosis and lower colonization of lactobacillus species in the vaginal tract.
So overall, as a dietitian and nutritionist, I recommend making sure you have good gut health as part of your fertility plan.
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