New Research: Does Omega 3 Improve Your Chances of Getting Pregnant? (Episode 619)

Full Transcript: Episode 619

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

This is the Fertility Friday Podcast, episode number 619.

In today’s episode, I am delving into the topic of egg quality by sharing a newer research study that specifically looked at the impact of omega-3 intake on fertilization rates, pregnancy rates, and overall fertility. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump right in to today’s episode.

So the study that we’re going to be looking at today is called the effect of omega-3 supplements or diets on fertility in women. It’s a meta-analysis. And so what’s great about this study is the way that it was done, the researchers were really cognizant on what they were looking for. So it builds on previous research. It answers some of the questions that may have been left missing from some other recent studies that have shown different results. And so let’s go ahead and jump into this question of what is the effect of omega-3 supplementation on fertility in women specifically?

So just to set the tone, I wanted to share some stats. I’m sure that many of you are familiar with these. These are things that we talk about all the time that we’ve written about, that I’ve written about in The Fifth Vital Sign and Lily and I have written about in Real Food for Fertility. But just to kind of ground some of the stats, fertility worldwide is a very significant issue. About 15% of couples of reproductive age experience infertility. And we know that the male factor and female factor sits at about 50%. So about 40 to 50% of the time it’s related to female factor and 30% of the time it’s solely related to male factor infertility and 50% of the time male factor is a contributing factor.

But that means that we’re about 50-50. So as much as I love to talk about sperm, we also have to make sure we’re talking about egg quality and looking at what we can do to support that because it’s literally 50-50. And for any of you who have had children, I always joke that I did all the heavy lifting, but my children came out looking exactly like their dad. So whether we acknowledge it or not, it is a 50-50 equation. And even the stats tell us that in very clear detail.

So a few things to know about omega-3 fatty acids is that they are essential. They’re something that our body does require, but our bodies can’t make them. We have to get them from food. And so the three main forms are ALA, EPA, and DHA. I’m just going to use the acronyms, the abbreviation. And so there is a bit of a debate. Can we get these omega-3 fatty acids from plant foods? Do we need to get them from animal foods? But what the research tells us is that our body is just not really great about converting these fats when they’re derived from animal foods. So the best source of omega-3 fatty acid is from fish and seafood. And so to put that in context, some studies show that less than 1% of what we intake when we’re taking in plant-based omega-3 fatty acids like flaxseeds, for example, less than 1% of what we consume is actually converted into the EPA and the DHA that we need. So there is a very compelling argument that we actually do need to get these omega-3 fatty acids from fish and seafood, so from animal products.

So what we also know from research is that deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids is negatively associated with fertility. When women are known to be quite deficient in omega-3 fatty acid, there is an increased risk of miscarriage and premature birth. So we do know that there’s a significant correlation to fertility overall and the intake of omega-3 fatty acids. Another concerning statistic is that up to 95% of US women of childbearing age are not consuming sufficient DHA or EPA.

So these are just a few stats to kind of ground us in how important that it is. Now, many of us do know how important this is. And if you’re planning ahead for pregnancy, trying to conceive, it might be something that’s on your radar, but we’re going to dive deeper into just how important it could be or how it could actually affect and impact your chances of conception.

So one other thing I want to say is just to make a nod of the fact that our modern diets, the standard American diet, if you will, or the standard North American diet, it includes a whole lot of processed foods and a whole lot of omega-6 fatty acids. So when we’re thinking about all of the fast food options and all these things are always fried in plant fats, omega-6 fatty acids. And so the ideal ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids for our overall health is somewhere around one-to-one. But with the highly processed nature of our current food supply, some estimates are that people may be consuming as much as 30 to 1. So the ratio of 30 parts omega-6 fatty acids to one part omega-3 when the ideal would be 1 to 1. This is one of the reasons why the focus of my most recent book co-authored with Lily Nichols, Real Food for Fertility, the title of it obviously in Lily’s series, Real Food, because when we focus on real food as opposed to processed food, we naturally improve that ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid consumption.

So let’s get into the study and talk a little bit more about what it found. So the study is a meta-analysis. And so what this means is that these researchers evaluated 11 different studies looking at data from over 6,000 women and over eggs. So what’s great about meta-analyses is it kind of brings this research together and allows us to kind of gather a larger sample size, which can help us to feel more confident in the study results and outcomes.

So a few things that are interesting about this study, they did look at women who were consuming omega-3 fatty acids — some studies will look at the serum levels but these researchers focused on the consumption — so they wanted to find out how does the consumption of additional omega-3 fatty acids affect fertility in these various ways. And the other one, just another piece of interesting information from the study is that the researchers did separate out women who were seeking conception through IVF, so through artificial reproductive technology, and women who were conceiving naturally and spontaneously. So what’s interesting about the study as well is it does give us some data on IVF as well as on spontaneous pregnancy and how the omega-3 fatty acid consumption impacts those.

So I want to go through some of the most interesting and compelling findings from the study. And I would say the first one is that the researchers found that the consumption of omega-3 fatty acids, whether it was from actually eating fish or whether it was from fish oil supplements, more than doubled the odds of fertilization. So when they’re looking at the eggs specifically, especially in the IVF procedures, they did find that women who consumed more omega-3 fatty acids had higher rates of fertilization. And it was more than double, which is quite significant. And certainly this does support a lot of the themes that we talk about on this podcast, a lot of the data that we went through in Real Food for Fertility, which does talk about this critical window of anywhere from three to eight months or more leading up to pregnancy when your nutritional inputs can make a significant impact into the quality of the egg. So this study essentially supports some of this collective research that we already know how crucial it is to support egg quality in those months leading up to conception.

So a second compelling data point was that when the researchers were assessing their data, there was one study that was kind of an outlier. And in that study, the rate of fertilization was unusually high — so that one study the researchers found that there was a fourfold increase in pregnancy rates — and that was different to the general kind of pool of studies. So in order to just check to see if that study was swaying the data they actually pulled it out and ran an analysis and even when they pulled that study out — so this would be kind of like the most conservative estimate of the data — it still showed a 40 percent improvement in the odds of pregnancy during fertility treatment for women who were consuming the omega-3 fatty acids. So it’s really interesting to kind of see how the researchers pool the data and how they try to kind of check their data and arrange the data to ensure that they’re getting accurate results. And they don’t want for one study to skew the results, but even when that one study with significantly higher results was removed, there was still a very consistent positive impact of omega-3 fatty acid consumption.

Now, a third really important and helpful data point was that this benefit was not only seen in women who were undergoing IVF treatment. They also saw a strong positive correlation for women who were conceiving naturally. So women who were trying to conceive naturally or who spontaneously conceived who were consuming omega-3 fatty acids had a 36% higher chance of pregnancy without undergoing fertility treatment at all. So fairly large sample size. And like I said, one of the points that was interesting about the study is that they did look at both populations, the population of women who are not undergoing any type of fertility treatment, as well as women who are also specifically undergoing IVF treatment.

So another point that the paper highlights, a point that I already mentioned, is that the researchers did note that individuals who do not consume fish or do not consume animal sources of omega-3 fatty acids are able to obtain ALA from plant sources, but the conversion into what we need to support egg quality, the EPA and DHA in the body is not sufficient. So it is important to note that, that we do have this conundrum. And it’s really important to kind of search the research to see what it’s saying so that we’re not getting incorrect information about sources of omega-3 fatty acids. So this study in particular was looking at animal sourced omega-3 fatty acid, either from fish or from fish oil. So it is important to make that distinction there.

The last point that I want to touch on is what made this study different to previous studies that were done on omega-3 fatty acids. The researchers pointed to a study that was released in 2021 that did find that there was no improvement with omega-3 and pregnancy rates. And some of these things I alluded to before, but in this previous study in particular they didn’t distinguish between women who were trying to conceive naturally and women who were seeking IVF treatment, and they didn’t separate out serum levels of omega-3 fatty acid as well as consumption. So one of the things that makes the study different is that they kind of narrowed in a little more specifically to consumption. They divided out women who were trying to conceive naturally versus women who were undergoing IVF treatments. And so in that sense, they were aiming to get a more clear answer to the question of how does omega-3 fatty acid consumption affect pregnancy, affect fertility, affect fertilization, all of those things.

So when we pull this all together, what does this mean? I feel like in many ways, the study doesn’t really find completely new information. There’s plenty of previous research that does suggest that omega-3 fatty acid consumption is essential for egg quality. But this study, I think what makes it unique and what makes it exciting is that it pools together a lot of data. So we have a larger sample size, which of course can help us to feel more confident in the results. They did look at the question a little bit more carefully, dividing out different groups and specifically looking at intake and not mixing in intake as well as serum levels, because there’s a lot of variation there that those questions would probably have to be looked at differently.

So I feel like what this study adds to the conversation is just a more robust review. This is the kind of study that I would have loved to include in the egg quality section of Real Food for Fertility because it really does provide that additional supportive data. Although we did have data when we wrote the section and we had a lot of great studies to support, but I feel like this study is a bit more robust and certainly is helpful in understanding.

And so again, just to kind of go over it, the researchers concluded that omega-3 intake was associated with significantly improved outcomes across all of the measures that they were looking for. So specifically pregnancy rates in women undergoing fertility treatment, pregnancy rates in women conceiving naturally, as well as fertilization rates at the oocyte level when women are undergoing fertility treatments. So based on the study results, women who were undergoing fertility treatment were 75% more likely to conceive when they were consuming omega-3 fatty acids. When that one study was removed that had really high results, they were still 40% more likely to conceive when they were consuming omega-3 fatty acids. In women who were trying to conceive naturally, so who were not undergoing IVF treatment, they were 36% more likely to conceive. And the fertilization rates at the oocyte level, when they were just looking at fertilization rates, the women who had consumed omega-3 fatty acids were over twice as likely to have the egg actually fertilized.

So all of these results were statistically significant. And certainly the conclusion from the researchers is that we should be looking more closely at omega-3 fatty acids. And while they’re not specifically evaluating egg quality, I think it’s safe to say that if the pregnancy rates are significantly improved, the fertilization rates are significantly improved in these different populations with such a strong sample size, then I think it’s safe to say that these results suggest that omega-3 fatty acid consumption is significant for egg quality. And for anyone who is trying to conceive, it would be a good idea to incorporate more fish and more fish oil to ensure that you are getting the benefit of the omega-3 fatty acid consumption.

So as we bring this episode to a close, I’m sure that you can think of a few friends, a few clients, even maybe your practitioner who could benefit from hearing this episode today and looking deeper into this research. So you will find the link to the research paper, all of those great things in the show notes. If you are listening on your favorite podcast player, you can look in there for the link. You can also go to fertilityfriday.com. And of course, we will post the link to today’s episode. So with that said, I hope you have a wonderful week, weekend, whenever you’re tuning into the show. And of course, as always, until next time, be well and happy charting.