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 Researchers followed 500 couples in Michigan and Texas for one year,
asking them to log their seafood consumption and sexual activity in
daily journals. Couples had 39 percent higher odds of having sex on
days when both partners ate seafood, the study found.
And by the end of the year, 92 percent of couples who ate seafood
more than twice a week had conceived, compared to 79 percent of
couples who ate less fish and shellfish. The association between
seafood and fertility remained even after accounting for how
frequently couples had sex.
"While an increase in sexual activity might be one behavioral
mechanism linking seafood intake to higher fecundity, it is not the
only mechanism," said lead study author Audrey Gaskins, a nutrition
researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in
Boston.
"We postulate that the observed association between seafood and
fecundity independent of sexual activity could be driven by
improvements in semen quality, menstrual cycle function (e.g.
increasing the likelihood of ovulation and levels of progesterone),
and embryo quality as previous studies have observed these benefits
with higher seafood and (omega-3) fatty acid intake," Gaskins said
by email.
Doctors generally advise adults to eat at least two servings a week
of oily fish like salmon, mackerel, herring and tuna that are rich
in omega-3s, which are linked to a lower risk of heart disease and
stroke.
But women who are pregnant or trying to conceive are told to eat no
more than three servings a week of fish to avoid exposure to
mercury, a contaminant that can cause birth defects and may be
highly concentrated in shark and swordfish as well as mackerel and
tuna.
At the start of the current study, researchers asked couples how
often over the past 12 months they ate canned tuna as well as crab,
fish and shellfish caught in local waters or in unknown locations.
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Men who ate more seafood during the year before the study tended to
have sex more often than men who ate less, but there wasn't a
meaningful difference for women, the study found.
Couples' odds of conception also didn't appear to be influenced by
how much seafood they ate during the year before the study,
researchers report in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and
Metabolism.
How much seafood people ate also didn't seem to be influenced by
factors like income, education, exercise or body weight.
The study wasn't a controlled experiment designed to prove whether
or how seafood might influence sexual activity or fertility. It also
wasn't clear what types of fish people ate, which could influence
their risk of mercury exposure.
"All fish are not equal," said Tracey Woodruff, director of the
Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University
of California, San Francisco.
"A lot of sardines or anchovies are good, they're very small and
there's not a lot of contaminants," Woodruff, who wasn't involved in
the study, said in a phone interview. "Tuna gets complicated because
that can have more mercury in it."
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2JZYcqz Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and
Metabolism, online May 23, 2018.
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