Published: May 7, 2013 | Updated: May 8, 2013
By Kathleen Struck , Senior Editor, MedPage Today
Action Points
- Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
- In this study, significant increases in fertility were found in patients reporting a high protein diet particularly when combined with dietary carbohydrate restriction and this relationship was independent of BMI.
NEW ORLEANS — Results from a small study suggest that women whose diets consist of at least 25% protein may have more successful outcomes when undergoing assisted reproduction.
Two-thirds of the women who ate protein rich diets (32 of 48) achieved pregnancy versus 31.9% (23 of 72) of controls (P<.0005), said Jeffrey B. Russell, MD, of the Delaware Institute for Reproductive Medicine, in Newark, Del.
And the results were even more impressive when a high protein intake was combined with carbohydrate restriction (less than 40% of daily diet) as pregnancy rate climbed to 80%, in that subset Russell and colleagues reported at the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists meeting here.