What insulin resistance does to your fertility?

Insulin resistance affects all key fertility events—ovulation, fertilisation, and embryo implantation. It also affects sperm quality. Sadly, it can even cause first trimester miscarriages and infertility.

Insulin resistance wrecks havoc on your ovaries

Insulin is a hormone. Ovaries are covered with insulin receptors. Healthy insulin levels are essential to ovarian health. 

High circulating levels of insulin and lipids (fat) will affect your other reproductive hormones, consequently, delaying or even suppressing ovulation. This can lead to irregular cycles. A classic example of the effect of insulin resistance on ovaries is PCOS. 

Accelerates ovarian ageing

More advanced insulin resistance may lead to Type 2 diabetes. Uncontrolled Type 2 diabetes can cause small blood vessel damage in your ovaries. This is bound to reduce healthy ovarian blood circulation. Reduced blood flow is a feature of ageing ovaries, and is likely one of the reasons for declining egg quality. 

As a result of the damaging effects of insulin resistance, women with Type 2 diabetes are more likely to enter menopause earlier.

Increases risk of miscarriage

Research has linked insulin resistance with an increased risk of early miscarriage. And women who had three or more pregnancy losses are likely to have insulin resistance diagnoses. 

Insulin resistance on sperm quality

 In conclusion, insulin resistance in men with unexplained infertility may be a cause of reproductive and metabolic abnormalities. The benefit of insulin-sensitizing agents for these patients should be explored. 

Insulin resistance and IVF 

Insulin resistance is also a hurdle when trying IVF. Studies show that IVF isn’t enough to  avoid the harm caused by insulin resistance. Consequently, women with insulin resistance are more likely to lose pregnancy after IVF treatments. Miscarriage is a traumatic experience. And it is especially distressing for women who achieve pregnancy through the highly invasive, expensive, and stressful treatments. 

Another important aspect, IVF patients with insulin resistance may require higher doses of gonadotropins and have a higher risk of developing gestational diabetes.

 

PCOS

Can insulin resistance cause PCOS? Can PCOS lead to insulin resistance? We don’t know. 

Either way, the majority of women with PCOS will experience some degree of insulin resistance. The bodies of women with PCOS can make insulin but can’t use it effectively. Excess insulin tells the ovaries to make more testosterone. Insulin and testosterone fuel each other’s production.

Excess testosterone and insulin aggravate PCOS symptoms and compromise fertility: 

How to optimise your fertility by breaking the cycle of insulin resistance

We need to figure out the best way for each person to break the insulin resistance cycle. 

As you can see from the paragraphs above, healthy insulin levels are essential when trying to conceive. Additionally, insulin resistance and its harmful effects can be passed onto future generations. Impaired glucose tolerance in mothers has been linked to insulin resistance in babies

 

To sum up, the lifestyle changes you are going to make today:

  • Can help you to fall and stay pregnant,
  • Will improve the health of your future children,
  • Optimising your health before pregnancy will reduce the risk of your kids having difficulties making babies.

Insulin resistance and fertility – explained

What is insulin resistance?

After each meal, your blood sugar/glucose increases. This is a healthy body’s reaction. You need glucose to function. As a response, the pancreas releases insulin to absorb the glucose. Insulin lowers blood sugars by guiding them into the muscle, fat, and liver.

All is good while insulin regulation works well. Unfortunately, some unhealthy lifestyle habits can easily tip insulin off the balance.

Here is the list of the main causes of insulin resistance

  • Excess weight
  • High amounts of fat stored in the liver and pancreas
  • Unhealthy diet: high-calorie, high-carbohydrate or high-sugar
  • Low physical activity
  • High doses of steroids over long periods of time
  • Chronic stress
  • Cushing’s disease
  • Polycystic ovarian syndrome
  • Excessive insulin
  • High levels of inflammation

Being overweight is one of the main reasons for developing insulin resistance. It is a vicious cycle. The excess fat cells produce hormones encouraging insulin resistance. The higher insulin is, the hungrier you are. The more you eat, the harder it is to process excess blood sugars. Consequently, you start storing excess glucose as fat. And the cycle keeps spiralling.

Dangers of insulin resistance when trying to conceive

There are no obvious symptoms of insulin resistance. Because better blood sugar control improves fertility, we recommend that you consider improving insulin resistance with diet and lifestyle. This is especially important when one or more of the following factors apply to you:

  • Irregular cycles
  • Low ovarian reserve
  • PCOS
  • History of miscarriage (both male and female)
  • Recurrent miscarriages (both male and female)
  • Excess weight (both male and female)
  • Type 2 diabetes (both male and female)
  • Failed IVF cycle (both male and female).
Gluten-free diet and fertility

Gluten-free diet and fertility – is there a connection

There is no known benefit of a gluten-free diet on fertility unless you are diagnosed with celiac disease or sensitivity to gluten.

Celiac disease is an immune reaction to eating gluten. You can find it mostly in wheat, barley and rye. If you have celiac disease, eating gluten triggers an immune response in your small intestine. The only known treatment for it is the elimination of trigger foods and beverages.

On the gluten-free diet, you can have foods that are naturally without gluten or you can also eat substituted foods like bread from flours of rice, buckwheat, corn, brown rice, amaranth, quinoa, or millet.

Celiac disease may be a reason for some alterations in male and female fertility. Check from the symptoms below:

Female fertility Delayed onset of menses, no periods, early menopause, recurrent miscarriages, reduced rates of pregnancy, unexplained infertility
Male fertility Testicular dysfunction, altered sperm morphology and motility, and reduced sexual activity
Alterations in pregnancy Repeated miscarriages, premature delivery, impaired fetal growth, abnormal placental function, pregnancy anaemia

If you have any of the above issues, and no diagnosis, there may be a value of getting tested for celiac disease.

In case you are gluten sensitive, start gluten-free foods as soon as possible. Avoiding gluten seems to lengthen the fertile life span in celiac women. It has been shown to improve fertility and reduce the risk of further reproductive problems.