Friday Findings 10/18

Chemical in Plastics Associated with 80 Percent Higher Risk of Miscarriage

"Scientists analyzed 114 pregnant women who had histories of infertility or miscarriages and found that those with high levels of BPA in their blood were 80 percent more likely to miscarry than the rest of the participants." This makes me so sad. Like the article states, plastic is everywhere and cannot be realistically avoided. I have heard that chemicals leaching out of plastic could impact fertility but that in increases risk of miscarriage is new to me. However it's important to note that they don't know why the levels were higher in some women. It may not actually be due to increased exposure but how your body metabolizes those chemicals or even some other reason. It's definitely something that needs to be researched more.

Is bacon a male contraceptive?

"Processed meat intake was associated with lower percent morphologically normal sperm while white meat fish intake was associated with higher percent morphologically normal sperm. Dark meat fish intake was related to higher total sperm count." So it's not just bacon that could be a problem, unfortunately. More info here.

Cinnamon May Help Ease Common Cause of Infertility

"A small study by researchers from Columbia University Medical Center in New York City found that women with polycystic ovary syndrome who took inexpensive daily cinnamon supplements experienced nearly twice the menstrual cycles over a six-month period as women with the syndrome given an inactive placebo. Two of the women in the treated group reported spontaneous pregnancies during the trial." When they say small, they mean small - only 16 women were included in the study. I personally took and ate cinnamon while actively TTC and didn't didn't see any noticeable improvement. Cinnamon is pretty cheap though so it's worth a try.

Live births higher with letrozole than clomiphene in women with PCOS

"In a randomized prospective study, 27.5% of women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) who received letrozole (Femara) had a live birth, compared with 19.5% of women treated with clomipheme." Investigators said femara should be the "new standard for care" rather than clomid which is the current go-to. If your doctor is still hesitant to try femara you may want to show them this article.