Silent Health Benefits of Eating Fish

Although lead study author Audrey J. Gaskins, a research associate at Harvard, speculates that seafood might improve semen quality and egg release for ovulation, scientists can’t really say exactly what the mechanism is for the improved pregnancy rates in regard to higher fish consumption.

She notes, however, that if eating fish has anything to do with bringing couples together, it’s more of a behavioral pathway rather than a causal one. A reader commenting on the article suggested that it’s the selenium that may have something to do with the “baby-making merit” of eating seafood, and cited a study published in International Journal of General Medicine, which observes:

“A significant development in the last 10 years in the study of human infertility has been the discovery that oxidative sperm DNA damage has a critical role in the etiology of poor semen quality and male infertility. Selenium (Se) is an essential element for normal testicular development, spermatogenesis, and spermatozoa motility and function.”

Scientists in this study found that among 690 men suffering from idiopathic asthenoteratospermia (reduced sperm motility), who’d been given a combined supplement of 400 units of vitamin E and 200 μg of selenium daily for at least 100 days, 52.6 percent of the men (362 of them) had “significantly improved” sperm motility, morphology or both. There were also 75 cases of “spontaneous pregnancy.”

A case-controlled study in the U.K., published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, targeted the selenium status of women with a history of recurrent miscarriage and found evidence that selenium deficiency was also a factor when study participants who couldn’t carry a pregnancy to term were compared to women who’d had little or no trouble becoming parents.

While the researchers found that the “difference was seen in hair samples but not serum samples and therefore may not represent a simple nutritional deficiency,” there was also a “significantly greater proportion of women in the control group who ate cereals, vitamin supplements and liver or kidney.”

That said, it’s interesting to note that, according to Nutrition Data, while a 3.5-ounce (100-gram) piece of cooked beef liver contains 57 percent of the daily value or Reference Daily Intake (RDI) of selenium, the same amount of wild-caught Alaskan salmon provides 67 percent of the RDI in selenium.

Article Source: Dr Mercola at Mercola.com  

Why Fish Is the Ultimate Superfood

You’ve heard fish is good for you. Avid fishermen on the thousands of lakes and rivers across the U.S. enjoy catching fish for dinner. In the U.S., folks on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts have found fish to be plentiful, delicious and a good source of protein.

But a new study shows that eating fish is better than first realized: It seems to be a factor that raises the odds of becoming pregnant, not only because couples who included fish on the menu had sex more often, but because they also conceived more quickly compared to people who had something else for dinner instead.

Scientists conducting the study, which was published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, interviewed 501 couples who were actively endeavoring to become parents without involving medical intervention and followed them for a year or until they became pregnant, whichever came first.

Each couple kept a journal to record their health and behavioral habits, including what they ate — particularly their individual fish consumption — and the frequency of sexual intercourse. The study was controlled for things like smoking and alcohol intake, physical activity, the age of each individual, education level and other factors. The New York Times notes:

“They found that men who had two or more four-ounce servings of fish a week had a 47 percent shorter time to pregnancy, and women a 60 percent shorter time, than those who ate one or fewer servings a week.

Partners who ate fish also had sexual intercourse, on average, 22 percent more frequently, but the association of eating fish with pregnancy persisted even after controlling for frequency of lovemaking. By 12 months, 92 percent of couples who ate fish twice a week or more were pregnant, compared with 79 percent among those who ate less.”

Article Source: Dr Mercola at Mercola.com