According to a statement from the Endocrine Society, researchers have discovered that high cholesterol may delay pregnancy.
Approximately a third of U.S. adults have high levels of "bad" cholesterol, according to the CDC. Only one out of every tree adults with high levels of bad cholesterol has the condition under control. Furthermore, having high cholesterol puts you at risk for heart disease and stroke.
"In addition to raising the risk of cardiovascular disease, our findings suggest cholesterol may contribute to infertility," posited Enrique F. Schisterman, MS, PhD, of the National Institutes of Health's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. "Our results suggest prospective parents may want to have their cholesterol checked to ensure their levels are in an acceptable range."
Researchers analyzed the rate of pregnancies among 501 heterosexual couples trying to get pregnant. Among the couples, 347 became pregnant over the course of the year-long study. Fifty-four couples did not conceive a child. A hundred couples backed out of the study, including some who decided they no longer wanted to have a child.
Researchers determined each prospective parent's cholesterol by testing a blood sample collected at the beginning of the study. They measured the total and free quantities of cholesterol in the blood. They discovered that couples where one or both partners had high cholesterol took far longer to conceive.
"Couples in which both the prospective mother and father had high cholesterol levels took the longest time to conceive a child," Schisterman noted. "Our study also found couples in which the woman had high cholesterol and the man did not took longer to become pregnant than couples where both partners had cholesterol levels in the normal range."
The study's findings are described in greater detail in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
Source : http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/attention-prospective-parents-high-cholesterol-may-delay-pregnancy/
