One study suggests that women who eat the recommended amount of fiber would have lower levels of estrogen and ovulate less often than consumers with lower levels of fiber.
Among 250 women aged 18 to 44 years, those who ate the recommended amounts of fiber had lower levels of estrogen and other reproductive hormones. Increase your fiber intake, especially from fruits, was associated with an increased risk of anovulatory menstrual cycles in which the ovaries release an egg.
The results, published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, does not mean that eating foods rich in fiber is a bad thing. The fiber diet is associated with several health benefits such as reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer and breast cancer. Doctors recommend that adults eat 20-35 grams of fiber per day, depending on calorie intake.
Anyway, the new results question whether these recommendations are best for women who want to become pregnant, they wrote of Audrey J. Gaskins, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Rockville, Maryland. Anovulation may have several causes: too much exercise, a high or low percentage of body fat, thyroid gland dysfunction and polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal disorder is a common cause of infertility.
Women who do not ovulate regularly tend to have irregular periods or no menstruation. But some still have the time. All participants were healthy and had regular menstrual periods. Still, they consumed more fiber (22 grams per day or more) were more likely to have at least one anovulatory cycle in two months. The team measured anovulation as the levels of reproductive hormones in two periods.
22 percent of all menstrual cycles were anovulatory in that group, as opposed to 7 percent in the cohort of women with the lowest intake of fiber. When the team considered other factors that could alter ovulation, such as weight, ethnicity, level of exercise and calorie intake, high fiber intake was associated with 10 times the risk of anovulation.
In analyzing specific sources of fiber, the researchers found that the association between fruit fiber and anovulation was evident. The results do not prove that the fiber disrupts ovulation. But the authors say it is biologically plausible.
Diets rich in fiber, they said, reduce activity in certain intestinal enzymes, which decreases the reabsorption of estrogen in the colon. Fiber may also increase the elimination of estrogen in the feces. In line with this, the researchers found that women with high-fiber diet had lower levels of estrogen during menstrual periods and other reproductive hormones, including progesterone, luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating.
The results, according to the researchers, suggest that women who are trying to conceive reduce consumption of fiber. But they wrote, more studies are needed before making recommendations.
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