What are the best ways to increase fertility?

Question

We are newly married couple. What Food habits we need to take care of and what are the best workout tips for us? If we need to do physical activity - which one is more effective YOGA or Gym Workouts ? and what are the additional precautions I need to take?

Answer 1

I will try to answer your question by using another perspective (risk factors for infertility).

MALE

Among the main causes of male infertility, "idiopathic" causes (ie not du to endocrine problems, genetic defects or sperm transport problems) represent 40%.

In the last decades, increasing attention has been given to environmental factors. Here a brief overview:

• The pesticide dibromochloropropane is a well-known cause, as are lead, cadmium, and mercury.
• The possibility that chemicals with estrogenic or antiandrogenic activity (“endocrine disruptors”), including insecticides and fungicides, may lower sperm counts has attracted much attention lately, although direct proof of an effect in men is lacking.
• Occupational and environmental exposure has been associated with lower quality semen analyses; limited data suggest that consumption of fruits and vegetables with high pesticide residues may also be associated with lower semen quality.
• Because of the rapid increase in cell phone use around the world, studies have been done to investigate whether cell phone usage has any detrimental effects on sperm parameters. This issue is controversial and definitive data are not yet available.
• Smoking – Data on cigarette smoking and its possible effect on sperm counts are inconsistent. However, in a meta-analysis of 20 observational studies, men who smoked cigarettes were more likely to have low sperm counts.
• Hyperthermia – Hyperthermia has long been thought to impair spermatogenesis. Prolonged high testicular temperature may explain the infertility associated with spinal cord injuries, varicocele, and chronic sauna and Jacuzzi exposure. Similarly, febrile illness, prolonged sitting during work or truck driving, welding, baking, tight fitting underwear, and laptop use with increased heat to the testes have been proposed to adversely affect male fertility. The data to support these associations are inconsistent and may be a very weak risk factor for infertility.

FEMALE

Similarly to male infertility, idiophatic female infertility has been associated with similar risks factors, although some of them show conflicting results and have still to be confirmed. Here additional information regarding some risk factors:

• Smoking: Most series report that fecundability is decreased if the female partner smokes more than 10 cigarettes per day. In a 1998 meta-analysis including data from almost 11,000 smoking women and over 19,000 nonsmokers, cigarette smoking by the female partner was associated with a statistically significant increase in infertility compared to nonsmokers (OR 1.60, 95% CI 1.34-1.91)
• Weight: most studies report a BMI greater than 27 kg/m2 or a BMI less than 17 kg/m2 is associated with increased ovulatory dysfunction and resultant infertility

Regarding your two specific questions about diet and exercise:

DIET

In healthy couples, there is no strong evidence that dietary variations such as vegetarian diets, low-fat diets, and vitamin or antioxidant-enriched diets improve fertility.

EXERCISE

The intensity and duration of exercise can affect female fertility, but the specific type of exercise does not appear to be a factor. In some epidemiological studies, vigorous/intense physical activity was associated with ovulatory infertility, while others have not observed a significant association

So avoiding some of those proven risk factors, may reduce your risk of developing infertility. I haven't found any evidenced based data of fertility "stimulants".

Sources: Swerdloff et al. Causes of male infertility. Uptodate.com. Jul 2016, Hornstein et al. Optimizing natural fertility in healthy couples. Uptodate.com. Jul 2016

Answer 2

As far as I know taking zinc pills increase the volume of your sperm. Also avoiding hot baths/creating a fresh environment for your scrotum increases the sperm count.

Maybe some exercises to increase testosterone helps too. For best advice man you gotta see a health care professional.