Dairy consumption is associated with years of advanced ovarian aging, which is believed to be due to steroid hormones or endocrine-disrupting chemicals in cow’s milk.
When it comes to the amount of steroid hormones we have exposed In the food supply, dairy products “supply 60% to 80% of ingested female sex steroids.” I have talked about the effects of these estrogens and progesterone in men and prepubescent boys, and how drinking milk can increase estrogen levels within hours of consuming it. You can see graphs illustrating these points starting at 0:25 in my video. The effects of milk hormones on infertility in women. In terms of effects on women, I have discussed the increased risk of endometrial cancer in postmenopausal women. What about women of reproductive age? Could dairy hormones affect reproduction?
We know that “dairy intake has been associated with infertility; however, little is known regarding associations with reproductive hormones or anovulation.” How could dairy do it? Affecting the preparation of the uterus or affecting the ovary itself? The researchers found that women who ate yogurt or cream had about twice the risk of sporadic anovulation, that is, ovulation failure, so that some months there was no egg to fertilize. We now know that most yogurt today is full of sugar. Even plain Greek yogurt may have more sugar than a double chocolate glazed cake donut, but the researchers controlled for that and the results held up after adjusting for sugar content, “suggesting that the risk of anovulation was independent of the sugar content included in many flavored yogurt products.” We don’t know if this was just a fluke or what exactly the mechanism might be, but if women skip ovulation here and there throughout their lives, could they end up with a greater ovarian reserve of eggs?
Women are starting to have their first baby later in life. As you can see in the graph below and at 2:02 in my videothere has been an increase in women having babies when they are between 30 and 40 years old.
We used to think that a woman’s ovarian egg reserve remained relatively stable until a rapid decline around age 37, but we now know that it appears to be more of a gradual loss of eggs over time. The graph below and at 2:22 in my video graphics a constant loss that begins at peak fertility at age 20.
This measures the “antral follicle count,” which is an ultrasound test where count the number of eggs from the “next batter” in the ovaries, as you can see below and at minute 2:31 in my video. He is Probably the best reflection of true reproductive age. It is a measure of ovarian reserve: how many eggs a woman has left.
What does this have to do with diet? Harvard researchers I look to the association of various protein intakes with ovarian antral follicle count among women who have problems getting pregnant. “Although decreased ovarian reserve is one of the main causes of female infertility, the process that leads to reproductive senescence [deterioration with age] It is currently little understood. In light of emerging population trends toward delayed pregnancy, identifying reversible factors (including diet) that affect individual rates of reproductive decline could have significant clinical value.”
The researchers performed ultrasounds on all the women, studied their diets, and concluded that a higher intake of dairy proteins was associated with a lower antral follicle count; in other words, accelerated ovarian aging. The graph below and at 3:39 in my video show what counts look as in non-smokers: significantly lower ovarian reserve (12.7 antral follicle counts) with the highest dairy intake, which would be about three ounces of cheese a day, compared with the lowest dairy intake (16.9 antral follicle counts).
What do these numbers mean in terms of biological age? Is there really that much difference between 16.9 and 12.7? As you can see below and at minute 3:58 in my videoWhen you look at women with really robust ovaries, what you might find is a follicle count of 16.9. see in a 36 or 37 year old person, while 12.7, which is what can be seen in women who consume the greatest amount of dairy, is what could be seen in a really fertile 50 year old person. So we’re talking about a year of ovarian aging among the highest and lowest dairy consumers.
Although it was not possible for the researchers “identify had educated guesses about the underlying mechanism linking higher dairy protein intake with lower AFC (antral follicle count). (1) It could be steroid hormones and growth factors or (2) “contamination of dairy products by pesticides and endocrine disrupting chemicals that can negatively affect” the development of these ovarian follicles and egg competition.
“As for the above [the hormones], studies suggest that commercial milk (derived from pregnant and non-pregnant animals) contains large amounts of estrogens, progesterone and other placental hormones that are eventually released into the human food chain, with dairy intake accounting for between 60% and 80% of the total. consumed estrogens. Dairy estrogens exceed [survive] processed, appear in raw full-fat cow and commercial dairy products, are found in substantially higher concentrations with increasing amounts of dairy fat, with no apparent difference between organic and conventional dairy products…” Hormones are found naturally in the body of cows , so they are not only in those who are injected with growth hormones. And, once these bovine hormones are inside the human body, they are converted to estrone and estradiol, the main active human estrogens. After absorption, bovine steroids may affect reproductive results.
The researchers stated that more studies are needed and that “it is imperative that these findings be replicated in prospective studies designed to elucidate the biology underlying the observed associations. “The latter could be crucial given that consumption of milk from another species by humans is a novel evolutionary dietary behavior that has the potential to alter reproductive parameters and may have long-term adverse health effects.”
The video I mentioned about the effects of these estrogens and progesterone on men and prepubescent boys is The effects of cow’s milk hormones on cancer.
I discuss the effect of dairy estrogens on male fertility in Dairy estrogens and male fertility.
How else could diet affect fertility? See related posts below.
