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Hum. Reprod. Advance Access originally published online on February 28, 2007
Human Reproduction 2007 22(5):1340-1347; doi:10.1093/humrep/dem019
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

A prospective study of dairy foods intake and anovulatory infertility

J.E. Chavarro1,6, J.W. Rich-Edwards2,4,5, B. Rosner3,4,5 and W.C. Willett1,2,5

1 Department of Nutrition 2 Department of Epidemiology 3 Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA 4 Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology 5 Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

6 To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115, USA. Tel.: +1 617 432 4584; Fax: +1 617 432 2435; E-mail: jchavarr{at}hsph.harvard.edu

BACKGROUND: Dairy foods and lactose may impair fertility by affecting ovulatory function. Yet, few studies have been conducted in humans and their results are inconsistent. We evaluated whether intake of dairy foods was associated with anovulatory infertility and whether this association differed according to fat content.

METHODS: We prospectively followed 18 555 married, premenopausal women without a history of infertility who attempted a pregnancy or became pregnant during an 8-year period. Diet was assessed twice during the study using food—frequency questionnaires

RESULTS: During follow-up, 438 women reported infertility due to an ovulatory disorder. The multivariate-adjusted relative risks (RR) [95% confidence interval (CI); P, trend] of anovulatory infertility comparing women consuming ≥ 2 servings per day to women consuming ≤1 serving per week was 1.85 (1.24–2.77; 0.002) for low-fat dairy foods. The RR (95% CI; P, trend) comparing women consuming ≥ 1 serving per day of high-fat dairy foods to those consuming ≤1 serving per week was 0.73 (0.52–1.01; 0.01). There was an inverse association between dairy fat intake and anovulatory infertility (P, trend = 0.05). Intakes of lactose, calcium, phosphorus and vitamin D were unrelated to anovulatory infertility.

CONCLUSIONS: High intake of low-fat dairy foods may increase the risk of anovulatory infertility whereas intake of high-fat dairy foods may decrease this risk. Further, lactose (the main carbohydrate in milk and dairy products) may not affect fertility within the usual range of intake levels in humans.

Key words: dairy/epidemiology/infertility/lactose/ovarian function

Submitted on October 25, 2006; resubmitted on January 2, 2007; accepted on January 11, 2007.


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