Nutrition & Supplementation for Female Fertility | Dr. Natalie Crawford & Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | - I mean, are there things that people should eat
00:00:03.920 | and not eat, things that people should supplement
00:00:06.280 | and not supplement in order to optimize their fertility?
00:00:11.280 | - I mean, this is definitely an interest of mine, right?
00:00:13.080 | All my fellowship research cycles around fecundability
00:00:15.800 | and natural fertility.
00:00:17.200 | And I think we really do a disservice
00:00:19.140 | by how medicine really is categorized by organ systems
00:00:23.400 | because we act like things in one place
00:00:25.800 | don't impact the other.
00:00:27.100 | - As if.
00:00:27.940 | - Right, but it's, you have a body
00:00:29.560 | and your body and especially your hormones change
00:00:32.260 | and fluctuate and they're meant to.
00:00:34.100 | They are meant to be a dynamic system,
00:00:36.880 | but the world and the environment
00:00:39.180 | of which you are subjecting your body to
00:00:42.960 | has proven changes on both hormonal function
00:00:47.020 | and also when it comes to egg and sperm quality.
00:00:50.140 | And so if you are somebody who just wants
00:00:51.760 | to live your healthiest life
00:00:53.260 | and have your most regular periods
00:00:56.260 | and have your hormones as well balanced
00:00:58.800 | as they can be for a lack of a better word,
00:01:01.300 | we'll just say that that means
00:01:02.180 | that they're functioning normally,
00:01:03.920 | then paying attention to the things
00:01:05.340 | that you do are really important.
00:01:06.820 | And so I know this is a big one for you.
00:01:08.820 | Sleep is probably the number one thing
00:01:10.240 | that people don't do that does impact
00:01:11.940 | their reproductive hormone system
00:01:13.540 | and therefore can impact egg and sperm quality
00:01:16.500 | because sleep is when you have cellular repair
00:01:18.740 | and when you can drop your inflammation levels.
00:01:21.100 | We know that inflammation is just toxic to eggs and sperm.
00:01:26.100 | It is.
00:01:27.060 | The inflammatory environment is not ideal for conception.
00:01:31.760 | And then for a female,
00:01:33.680 | you have to deal with the fact
00:01:34.840 | that you have your egg quality,
00:01:36.560 | but you also have how inflammation
00:01:39.160 | or what you're exposed to impacts your uterine environment.
00:01:42.060 | So you have a two-fold situation here.
00:01:45.760 | So none of this should be shocking news
00:01:48.480 | when it comes to nutrition,
00:01:50.160 | but it is not talked about enough.
00:01:51.780 | You're right.
00:01:53.100 | Decreasing inflammation by the foods
00:01:55.040 | that we put in our body is consistently shown
00:01:58.300 | with an improvement in fecundability,
00:02:01.160 | an improvement in ovulation,
00:02:03.160 | and an improvement in success with IVF,
00:02:05.640 | and a decrease in miscarriage, right?
00:02:08.160 | Huge studies have looked at these.
00:02:10.520 | Now, the big caveat is that nutrition studies are super hard
00:02:15.000 | because people who consume flax, for example,
00:02:19.160 | tend to have other good health behaviors
00:02:22.000 | that sometimes make it hard to identify what flax did
00:02:25.440 | versus their general health
00:02:26.960 | versus somebody who eats fast food every day.
00:02:30.960 | So nutrition studies tend to be observational,
00:02:33.320 | and fertility studies are really hard too
00:02:35.460 | because what endpoint are you using?
00:02:38.680 | Is it getting pregnant?
00:02:39.600 | Is it live birth?
00:02:40.660 | Are you looking at IVF?
00:02:41.960 | Are you looking at natural fertility?
00:02:43.640 | And we have a lot of different overlap
00:02:46.000 | that makes both of these a little bit difficult.
00:02:48.680 | And so they're all cohort-based or population-based studies
00:02:52.280 | where you analyze how people perform
00:02:54.920 | when it comes to fertility treatments
00:02:56.520 | or getting pregnant naturally
00:02:58.360 | based on their exposures to certain things.
00:03:01.040 | Diets high in fruits and vegetables are good for you,
00:03:04.480 | right, fiber, antioxidants.
00:03:06.160 | Fruit is not bad.
00:03:07.280 | Fruit got this really bad reputation.
00:03:09.240 | - Really? I love fruit.
00:03:10.080 | - I love fruit too,
00:03:10.900 | but people think that it has sugar
00:03:12.200 | and that it's bad for you.
00:03:13.480 | - Well, it has fructose, but, you know.
00:03:14.920 | - No, it's not.
00:03:15.760 | That type of sugar is not bad for you,
00:03:17.400 | if we can just agree on the fact
00:03:19.240 | that fruit has a lot of nutritional benefit,
00:03:21.600 | especially when it comes to vitamins and antioxidants
00:03:24.160 | that can be extremely beneficial in decreasing inflammation.
00:03:27.320 | Grains, so whole grains,
00:03:29.880 | especially that your body, you know,
00:03:31.240 | provide a lot of great fiber.
00:03:32.600 | So, of course, if you have celiac
00:03:35.000 | or you're gluten intolerant, you're a different category.
00:03:37.720 | But there was so much focus on keto
00:03:39.600 | and people eliminating grains as a food group overall.
00:03:43.000 | And even though that might be utilized
00:03:44.560 | in a dietary strategy to lose weight
00:03:47.000 | and losing weight can improve fertility,
00:03:49.940 | likely because of inflammation being the primary driver.
00:03:54.620 | Because we know that even in studies
00:03:56.660 | where I take donor eggs
00:03:58.520 | and I transfer that embryo into somebody who's overweight,
00:04:02.700 | they have lower odds of success
00:04:04.240 | than if they were a normal BMI.
00:04:06.840 | So we can't act like that causation
00:04:09.880 | is just on egg quality from obesity, right?
00:04:12.040 | There's also some inflammation,
00:04:13.800 | some inflammatory changes
00:04:15.640 | that impact the body's ability or desire
00:04:19.640 | to allow an embryo to implant.
00:04:21.760 | So fruits, veggies, whole grains are all good.
00:04:26.520 | Interestingly, you know, dairy.
00:04:28.640 | Dairy tends to be okay in most studies,
00:04:31.160 | but what we do see is that if you're gonna have dairy,
00:04:34.680 | have the real thing, the processed dairy, the skim milk,
00:04:39.480 | that actually decreases your fertility.
00:04:42.200 | And likely because the processing
00:04:44.560 | to make it still look like milk when you take out the fat
00:04:47.560 | is adding in things that are unnatural,
00:04:50.200 | potentially impacting your fertility.
00:04:52.160 | - I don't drink milk anymore,
00:04:53.200 | but when I was a teenager, I drank half and half.
00:04:55.360 | I'm not recommending anyone do that.
00:04:56.640 | Remember, I was a skiing teenager.
00:04:58.040 | - You were trying to bulk up.
00:04:59.160 | - Well, no, I just could afford to.
00:05:00.360 | I wasn't trying, at that age, I wasn't trying to at all,
00:05:02.800 | but it was just delicious.
00:05:05.600 | But so cheeses,
00:05:07.840 | whole, full fat milk.
00:05:11.960 | - Yogurt, yeah. - Half and half yogurt, okay.
00:05:13.840 | Yeah, but don't choose the skim one.
00:05:15.320 | Choose the actual one that comes with some of the milk fat.
00:05:19.400 | Fat is not bad for you.
00:05:20.560 | There's also this, right,
00:05:22.400 | hopefully we're getting away from it,
00:05:23.360 | but there's been such a low-fat craze
00:05:25.120 | or this real attention that fat is so bad,
00:05:28.240 | but fat comes in so many important forms.
00:05:32.160 | Avocados and oils and nuts, dairy, meat.
00:05:37.000 | Fat and cholesterol are the backbone for all hormones,
00:05:40.360 | right, so you need that in order for your body
00:05:43.800 | to make the estrogen and progesterone
00:05:45.680 | that it needs to allow this whole process to happen.
00:05:49.040 | And so there's this idea that those are bad for you.
00:05:52.000 | That's just really not.
00:05:52.840 | So healthy fats, whole grains, fruits, veggies.
00:05:55.640 | - And what about proteins and meats?
00:05:56.800 | Because I think within those categories,
00:05:58.680 | I'm a big fan of sustainably raised meats, if possible.
00:06:03.680 | Some people choose not to eat meat, but fish, eggs.
00:06:06.320 | - Love it all.
00:06:08.080 | Okay, so let's just go through the meats
00:06:09.600 | and the myth and the fact.
00:06:11.440 | So we'll do tofu.
00:06:13.320 | So there's this big issue that tofu has soy
00:06:15.640 | and that too much soy can be bad
00:06:17.600 | because soy can be a phytoestrogen.
00:06:19.920 | Tofu does not negatively impact fertility, even in men.
00:06:23.240 | In fact, it can improve it
00:06:24.640 | because it does have some antioxidant-like properties,
00:06:27.360 | lots of iron.
00:06:28.480 | When it comes to fish, fish are fantastic sources
00:06:32.520 | of healthy fats and omega-3 fatty acids,
00:06:35.040 | which are very crucial in the reproductive process.
00:06:39.040 | We do worry about, if you're pregnant,
00:06:41.080 | having too much fish and overexposure to mercury
00:06:44.160 | and how that can impact fetal brain development.
00:06:46.780 | So the general recommendation is three servings per week.
00:06:50.320 | That doesn't--
00:06:51.160 | - Let me guess, a serving is like four to six ounces,
00:06:52.760 | as opposed to like a real human that eats, you know.
00:06:55.000 | - A real human.
00:06:55.840 | - Yeah, that eats, you know, six to eight ounces of fish.
00:07:00.520 | - And I think it's important to say,
00:07:02.160 | even though people will tell you that
00:07:03.760 | when you're trying to get pregnant
00:07:05.140 | with the idea of we don't know
00:07:06.360 | when you're going to be pregnant,
00:07:08.520 | if you're going through things like egg freezing or IVF
00:07:11.160 | and you know when you're going to be pregnant,
00:07:13.400 | I wouldn't feel like you have to restrict yourself
00:07:15.520 | on the consumption of seafood during those time periods
00:07:19.160 | when you know you're not pregnant yet,
00:07:20.480 | because really the concern is about that mercury
00:07:23.240 | and what it could potentially do to a fetal brain.
00:07:25.520 | - And raw seafood, correct?
00:07:26.700 | No sushi, no sashimi.
00:07:28.040 | - Well, when you're pregnant, correct.
00:07:29.160 | And that's mostly because of the risk of infectious disease
00:07:32.080 | that can cause severe brain development and other issues.
00:07:35.200 | - What do they do in Japan?
00:07:36.520 | - I don't know, I don't live there.
00:07:37.960 | - They probably laugh at this.
00:07:38.960 | - They probably do laugh at us.
00:07:40.360 | They probably do laugh at us a lot.
00:07:41.400 | - Someone who's been pregnant in Japan.
00:07:45.080 | - Yeah, reach out, tell us.
00:07:45.920 | - Yeah, or conceived in Japan.
00:07:47.480 | Tell us, don't tell us the story of the conception,
00:07:49.680 | but tell us, did you have sashimi?
00:07:52.260 | - Overall, meat is a really broad category
00:07:57.380 | and studies study it differently.
00:07:58.980 | Like, is it all meat?
00:08:00.060 | Are you distinguishing now red meat and chicken?
00:08:04.200 | Are you putting it all together?
00:08:06.400 | I mean, obviously I think we can all come
00:08:07.800 | to the agreement that processed meats are not good
00:08:10.240 | for a variety of different reasons.
00:08:12.520 | In addition to being carcinogenic,
00:08:14.520 | those toxins do negatively impact fertility.
00:08:17.840 | Now--
00:08:18.680 | - So deli meat, no bueno.
00:08:19.880 | - So yeah, but in specifically those things like the bacon
00:08:23.040 | and like the things that are really highly processed,
00:08:26.440 | hot dogs, sorry, the 4th of July hot dog picnic.
00:08:29.880 | But those things really do not provide
00:08:32.560 | nutritional advantages and only harm.
00:08:36.040 | Especially then when we have red meat.
00:08:38.200 | For the most part, red meat when isolated individually
00:08:41.880 | in most circumstances in moderation tends to be fine.
00:08:46.640 | I usually tell my patients,
00:08:48.600 | I want them to eat a plant forward diet.
00:08:51.320 | But that doesn't mean no meat.
00:08:52.540 | But I say, look at your meat servings,
00:08:54.840 | I don't want it red meat every single day.
00:08:57.320 | Because there was a study looking at IVF
00:08:59.640 | and looking at embryos and the more servings,
00:09:02.620 | a lot of nutritional studies based things on quartile.
00:09:05.140 | So who eats the lowest and the second most
00:09:07.560 | and the third most and the top most.
00:09:09.540 | And people who ate in that top quartile of red meat
00:09:13.120 | had lower progression of embryos through the culture.
00:09:16.100 | So less embryos that developed,
00:09:19.240 | less normal embryos and lower success rates.
00:09:22.880 | - Do we know anything about how that meat was arriving?
00:09:25.960 | - No, unfortunately we don't.
00:09:26.800 | - Are we talking about like hoagie sandwiches?
00:09:28.640 | - We don't know it.
00:09:29.460 | - Or are we talking about like grass fed steaks?
00:09:30.360 | - Right, these studies are not wonderful,
00:09:32.480 | but that doesn't mean that they don't hold merit
00:09:34.720 | in helping us guide counseling.
00:09:36.480 | But no, that one was how many servings of red meat
00:09:39.960 | do you eat in a week, right?
00:09:41.360 | So we don't really know.
00:09:42.840 | Does the really ethically sourced, the grass fed,
00:09:46.520 | this environment which we feel like is much less toxic
00:09:50.800 | than potentially, let's say like a cattle factory
00:09:53.080 | where the cows are injected with all sorts of things.
00:09:55.200 | Is there a difference
00:09:56.600 | in how those impact your reproduction?
00:09:59.180 | Probably, right?
00:10:00.080 | If this cow is getting injected with a lot of hormones,
00:10:02.080 | why are we thinking that it's not impacting
00:10:04.580 | the meat that you're then ingesting into your body?
00:10:07.480 | - No, I think our audience
00:10:08.640 | will certainly subscribe to that idea.
00:10:12.560 | I think most of them will.
00:10:13.560 | I mean, the notion that like the pollutants
00:10:16.200 | you breathe in the air somehow are not the air
00:10:18.920 | that you breathe into your lungs
00:10:20.000 | is just like completely naive.
00:10:21.680 | - Wild.
00:10:22.520 | - And the idea--
00:10:23.340 | - But people feel that way
00:10:24.180 | and they hold strongly to this idea
00:10:25.800 | that it can't be this thing that I love
00:10:29.080 | that is causing this problem, right?
00:10:31.720 | The denial of the association between
00:10:35.200 | what we put in and on our body
00:10:37.640 | and how it impacts our body's function
00:10:40.280 | is really strong in some people.
00:10:41.920 | And I think it's really just lack of education and awareness
00:10:46.720 | because the medical community for so long
00:10:49.520 | did not address these factors, right?
00:10:51.720 | Your doctor never talks to you about nutrition.
00:10:54.760 | And so it just became this idea that it must not matter,
00:10:58.840 | otherwise your doctor would talk to you about it.
00:11:01.700 | I think sugar is the last thing I just didn't mention,
00:11:03.480 | but added sugar and artificial sugars are bad for you.
00:11:08.480 | - Artificial sugars.
00:11:09.800 | - Artificial sugars too.
00:11:10.920 | - Including stevia, so plant-based low-calorie sweeteners.
00:11:14.960 | - Stevia itself hasn't been studied
00:11:16.440 | as much as the other ones,
00:11:17.800 | things like sweet and low and all of those.
00:11:21.540 | But what we do know is that they interfere,
00:11:24.280 | they cause inflammation inside the body.
00:11:26.040 | And then they also can cause a stress reaction
00:11:29.400 | and they can cause higher rates of miscarriage
00:11:33.440 | when you intake more sugar and artificial sugar.
00:11:36.480 | So that's a lot to wrap your head around.
00:11:39.440 | And I say the same thing to every patient.
00:11:41.540 | One cake, one this, one hot dog.
00:11:45.280 | I mean, those things individually
00:11:46.600 | are not gonna make a difference, right?
00:11:48.160 | It's the choices that you make every single day
00:11:51.280 | that are going to set you up to be your healthy self or not.
00:11:54.240 | And so you should make choices
00:11:56.400 | in line with how you wanna treat yourself.
00:11:58.400 | You want to be in your best health.
00:12:00.500 | You want your hormones functioning the best.
00:12:02.520 | And if that added helps you get pregnant when you want to,
00:12:06.680 | helps you have a better chance of success with IVF,
00:12:09.260 | oh my gosh, what a fantastic benefit.
00:12:12.240 | But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy
00:12:13.800 | some of these bad things here and there,
00:12:17.320 | as long as you've set yourself up on the day-to-day
00:12:20.240 | where you're giving your body lots of nutritious food
00:12:23.340 | that it needs to make hormones.
00:12:25.840 | Similarly, being very underweight and calorie restricting,
00:12:29.540 | we all know is really terrible for your reproductive system
00:12:32.440 | and can cause the brain to totally shut down ovulation
00:12:35.240 | because it senses that you can't have a pregnancy.
00:12:39.360 | - If people miscarry, excuse me,
00:12:40.960 | by virtue of being underweight,
00:12:43.600 | does the body, like I learned some years ago,
00:12:48.440 | I think this is still true,
00:12:49.480 | that one of the signals for the onset of puberty in females
00:12:52.280 | is that leptin hormone is secreted from body fat
00:12:56.720 | that then signals to the brain, to the hypothalamus,
00:12:59.520 | like, okay, there's enough reserves to create environment.
00:13:03.640 | It's a signal about environmental--
00:13:05.800 | - Yeah, there's enough extra fat to have a baby.
00:13:07.320 | - Yeah, and there's presumably enough food around
00:13:09.220 | to sustain that baby, right.
00:13:11.300 | Are miscarriages and lack of body fat correlated?
00:13:15.960 | - On both ends of the spectrum, yes.
00:13:17.840 | So lack of body fat and being overweight,
00:13:21.040 | we see decrease in getting pregnant per month
00:13:25.000 | and we see increase in losing pregnancies.
00:13:28.080 | So certainly, there is a healthy medium
00:13:31.360 | where your body has what it needs.
00:13:33.680 | And that makes sense because if you have,
00:13:36.260 | I like to even say hypothalamic dysfunction.
00:13:38.520 | So maybe your brain's not totally shut off
00:13:40.680 | where it's sending out no hormones
00:13:42.040 | and you're not ovulating
00:13:43.680 | 'cause you're not getting pregnant in that circumstance.
00:13:45.860 | But certainly, ovulation disorders are on a spectrum
00:13:48.660 | where you go from a perfectly synchronized cycle
00:13:51.360 | to one that prolongs it, gets shorter together,
00:13:54.140 | then prolongs, and then you have nothing.
00:13:56.180 | There's this spectrum of dysfunction
00:13:58.060 | which is representing your hormones
00:14:00.160 | not being necessarily perfect.
00:14:03.220 | And that can have impacts on the placenta
00:14:05.360 | trying to grow into that uterus.
00:14:07.940 | I mean, the placenta is fascinating, right?
00:14:10.020 | An entire talk just on the placenta.
00:14:11.940 | But it does this incredible job
00:14:13.980 | where your body has to not reject it,
00:14:15.700 | yet allow it to eat away at the side of your uterus
00:14:18.460 | and grow into your blood vessels.
00:14:20.580 | But that requires a very specific hormonal environment
00:14:23.340 | for it to be done and to be done right.
00:14:26.220 | I think in the same breath of all this,
00:14:27.660 | what you're also asking is,
00:14:29.820 | yeah, okay, so that's eating healthy.
00:14:31.140 | None of that's really new news for most people.
00:14:33.100 | A lot of those things I just said.
00:14:34.660 | - Well, I think some, but I do wanna thank you
00:14:36.380 | 'cause I think rarely, if ever,
00:14:38.320 | do we hear somebody, a physician,
00:14:40.980 | be really direct about like, hey, listen,
00:14:42.900 | some red meat, yes, not excessive amounts of red meat.
00:14:45.580 | Ideally from sustainable sources,
00:14:49.460 | whole fat milk products, grains, fruits, vegetables.
00:14:52.260 | I mean, those kind of straight,
00:14:53.940 | what to you seem like straightforward directives
00:14:55.900 | are actually pretty rare in the landscape
00:14:58.340 | of public health discussion.
00:14:59.820 | Because more often than not,
00:15:01.740 | people talk about nutrition
00:15:02.840 | in these kind of elimination diet type things.
00:15:04.820 | Like eliminate all the grains or eliminate all the meat
00:15:07.700 | or eliminate all the milk fats.
00:15:10.920 | When in reality, I think people forget
00:15:12.660 | that like most people out there are omnivores
00:15:15.540 | and they can make better choices about not deli meat.
00:15:18.180 | You know, less bacon, if any bacon, right?
00:15:20.060 | - Have some veggies with your lunch, right?
00:15:21.620 | Like you can make better choices on the day to day.
00:15:23.660 | I think that is a great point.
00:15:25.700 | I think there's a place for supplements.
00:15:27.340 | I think the big disclaimer
00:15:28.500 | that everybody's gonna say with supplements
00:15:30.040 | is that they are not regulated
00:15:32.780 | like the way medications are, right?
00:15:35.580 | And I will say supplements and herbs are different things.
00:15:39.980 | Right, a supplement,
00:15:42.140 | but many companies are adding herbs to their supplements
00:15:44.740 | and that can get into really murky territory,
00:15:47.580 | especially when it comes to how some of these herbs
00:15:50.140 | do have estrogen and progestin like properties
00:15:52.620 | and can impact reproduction and hormones.
00:15:55.300 | - And perhaps even androgenic properties too.
00:15:56.980 | - Yes, so we can't act like everything's created equal.
00:16:00.860 | So I always tell people,
00:16:01.960 | if I recommend you take a supplement or your doctor does,
00:16:05.180 | your due diligence is to look at what is also included
00:16:08.260 | and make sure it doesn't have these extra added things
00:16:11.860 | that they're unaware of,
00:16:13.100 | because sometimes they can have negative impact
00:16:16.140 | at one stage of your life or another,
00:16:17.660 | depending on where you are.
00:16:19.460 | Certainly, a prenatal vitamin, which has folic acid,
00:16:22.380 | we all know that folic acid is really important
00:16:25.420 | to prevent neural tube defects,
00:16:26.780 | but it's also important in cell division
00:16:28.740 | and how the ovary is growing follicles and growing eggs.
00:16:32.620 | - So should people, women, but also men,
00:16:36.060 | be taking a vitamin with folic acid
00:16:38.380 | even when they're not trying to conceive?
00:16:41.020 | - There's no harm in having it,
00:16:43.380 | but very often pregnancies occur
00:16:46.220 | when you're not trying to conceive,
00:16:48.160 | and that is a store that needs to be built up
00:16:50.820 | three months ahead of time.
00:16:51.980 | So we really need you to be taking that
00:16:54.940 | ahead of getting pregnant.
00:16:56.440 | So not just, let's get pregnant right now,
00:16:58.780 | I'm going to start this prenatal vitamin.
00:17:01.080 | So I recommend anybody who's in their reproductive years,
00:17:04.180 | take a prenatal vitamin.
00:17:05.860 | We also know that many, many people are vitamin D deficient
00:17:09.820 | and vitamin D does impact reproduction.
00:17:13.660 | And so I usually say 1,000 international units of vitamin D
00:17:17.820 | is not going to be harmful in anybody.
00:17:19.780 | It's going to be helpful for most people.
00:17:21.980 | Some people definitely need higher levels.
00:17:25.220 | So we screen everybody with a vitamin D
00:17:27.140 | to see who needs to have extra,
00:17:29.540 | but a blanket statement that extra vitamin D
00:17:32.700 | is going to be helpful.
00:17:34.260 | Omega-3 fatty acids, also extremely important
00:17:37.500 | in one, being anti-inflammatory,
00:17:39.860 | but two, brain development of a fetus.
00:17:42.740 | So most prenatals now actually do have
00:17:45.420 | those omega-3 fatty acids in them,
00:17:47.660 | but if they don't, I recommend a patient take those.
00:17:50.740 | - Just a brief question/insertion there.
00:17:54.420 | There's a laboratory up at the University of California,
00:17:56.580 | Santa Barbara, that's published
00:17:57.540 | some really interesting data showing that
00:17:59.540 | essentially brain weight,
00:18:01.900 | which is just about one indirect measure of brain health,
00:18:05.100 | but brain weight at birth seems to be correlated,
00:18:09.060 | at least in some positive way,
00:18:10.460 | with the amount of essential fatty acids
00:18:13.100 | that mom consumed during pregnancy.
00:18:15.260 | Does that sound, does that hold?
00:18:16.780 | - Yeah, I mean, that does hold.
00:18:18.340 | And there's mice studies about that mice are smarter
00:18:23.180 | when they have diets with omega-3 fatty acids
00:18:26.540 | when they're in utero, right?
00:18:28.740 | So the exposure and the time period is really important.
00:18:30.980 | And omega-3s have a lot of health benefits
00:18:32.820 | when it comes to their antioxidant properties,
00:18:35.100 | especially in endometriosis,
00:18:38.380 | diseases that are very highly inflammatory.
00:18:41.460 | They can be very beneficial.
00:18:43.740 | - We're definitely gonna talk about your work
00:18:45.220 | after baby has arrived and impact of essential fatty acids,
00:18:48.180 | but what would you say is the dosage cutoff?
00:18:50.780 | On this podcast before, I've sort of thrown out numbers,
00:18:53.380 | like one to two grams per day
00:18:56.520 | of the EPA form of essential fatty acids.
00:18:59.860 | And then we could have a whole discussion
00:19:01.060 | about omega-3, omega-6 ratios.
00:19:02.660 | But do you think there's a upper limit?
00:19:05.220 | Is it truly that, let's say up to four grams per day of EPA,
00:19:09.860 | would that be advantageous?
00:19:12.180 | Is it better than one gram?
00:19:13.380 | - I tell people a gram.
00:19:14.660 | - A gram, okay.
00:19:15.500 | That's in alignment with pretty much
00:19:16.620 | what we've talked about before.
00:19:18.460 | - So that's what I recommend.
00:19:19.540 | You know, when I give my handout to my patients
00:19:21.540 | and they're trying to get pregnant,
00:19:22.620 | it's gonna have a prenatal, 1,000 IUs of vitamin D,
00:19:25.980 | a gram of omega-3s, and then CoQ10.
00:19:28.740 | So CoQ10, which essentially, in general,
00:19:33.740 | is trying to help the mitochondria.
00:19:35.580 | That's the whole idea here,
00:19:36.860 | that it is helping provide support
00:19:38.900 | across the body in a lot of different ways, right?
00:19:41.620 | Like CoQ10 is used in a lot of different areas of the body.
00:19:44.580 | But when it comes to reproduction,
00:19:46.220 | when it comes to meiosis and cell division and ovulation
00:19:50.140 | and egg quality and even sperm quality,
00:19:52.740 | there's a place for CoQ10 showing benefit without harm, right?
00:19:57.900 | And so no, like I said earlier,
00:20:00.100 | nothing's without any harm or any risk of harm,
00:20:01.900 | but very, very little.
00:20:02.860 | So I usually recommend if you're trying to get pregnant
00:20:05.260 | and you take CoQ10, a dose of 200 milligrams
00:20:08.940 | three times a day.
00:20:09.940 | So there's kind of a higher dose
00:20:11.220 | than sometimes people are on.
00:20:12.900 | Often prenatals now have just like 200 total in it.
00:20:16.940 | And so-
00:20:17.780 | - The expensive ingredients are usually
00:20:19.700 | the lower concentrations in blends.
00:20:22.860 | - Just enough so they can put it on the label.
00:20:24.620 | - Right, which includes CoQ10.
00:20:26.860 | Does the form of CoQ10 matter?
00:20:28.340 | 'Cause you'll find them in gel capsules.
00:20:29.900 | You'll also find them in powdered capsules.
00:20:33.100 | - I always say, I mean,
00:20:34.260 | there might be for the individual person.
00:20:36.300 | I mean, absorption of medication is really depending a lot
00:20:39.180 | on gut health and other factors.
00:20:41.300 | But the number one issue with supplementation
00:20:42.740 | is that people don't stick to it.
00:20:44.500 | So I always say whichever one
00:20:46.020 | you're going to consistently take
00:20:47.540 | is going to be the better form.
00:20:49.180 | - Right.
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