Trying to get pregnant? Get your cholesterol under control, especially if you’re a wanna-be mom.
Findings published online in The Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism showed the couples who both had high cholesterol levels took the longest time to get pregnant. Fertility was also impaired in couples where the woman had high cholesterol levels but the man did not, although not as dramatically.
“We’ve long known that high cholesterol levels increase the risk for heart disease,” said the study’s first author, Enrique Schisterman, Ph.D., chief of the Epidemiology Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the institute that led the study. “In addition to safeguarding their health, our results suggest that couples wishing to achieve pregnancy would improve their chances by first ensuring that their cholesterol levels are in an acceptable range.”
Learn more about Infertility and Lowering Your Blood Cholesterol.