Exercise and infertility: how closely are they related?

Finally scientists have come up with an excuse so that we don't have to go to the gym: hard work outs may lead a woman to be less fertile. Science Daily published results of a November 2009 study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) showing that a woman's body may not be able to support getting pregnant and working out overly hard.

While infertility can have many causes, known risk factors including stress, alcohol consumption, smoking and being extremely under- or over-weight, we may be adding "exercising too hard" to the list. Elite sports women have a higher amount of fertility problems than the average woman, but Norwegian researchers wanted to know whether extreme physical activity had the same sort of effect on other women.

With a study of 3,000 women, scientists found that frequent and hard exercise appears to reduce a young woman's fertility. The decrease in fertility, however, most likely only lasts as long as the training she is doing. The study was based on material from the Health Survey of Nord-Trøndelag from 1984-1986 and from a follow-up survey in 1995-1997. All of the women who participated were healthy and of childbearing age, and none had a history of fertility problems.

"Among all these women, we found two groups who experienced an increased risk of infertility," says Sigridur Lara Gudmundsdottir, a PhD candidate in NTNU's Human Movement Science Programme. "There were those who trained almost every day. And there were those who trained until they were completely exhausted. Those who did both had the highest risk of infertility."

Age was also an important factor in this study: if the women were under 30 years old, between 11 and 24 percent of them had an issue with fertility. "... when we compared those who trained to exhaustion to those who trained more moderately, we found that the first group had a three-fold greater risk of impaired fertility," says Gudmundsdottir. The women who had moderate to low activity levels showed no evidence of impaired fertility.

The theory that comes of this study is that "high levels of physical activity are so energy-intensive that the body actually experiences short periods of energy deficiency, where there is simply not enough energy to maintain all the necessary hormonal mechanisms that enable fertilization." This actually makes sense when one thinks about it. Moderate exercise, however, has been shown to give women better control over their insulin function as well as an improved hormone profile - creating a better condition for fertility. (The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) (2009, November 23). Hard training may reduce fertility in women.)

Are your other infertility communities talking about this? What are they saying?

Did your physician ask you to limit your exercise when trying to get pregnant?

What kind of exercise are you doing to keep yourself physically healthy while trying to conceive?

Other resources for infertility health activists:

Infertility Guide: Exhaustive physical exercise and women[s] infertility

Herbal Blog: Too much exercise can cause infertility

That's Fit: Does exercise reduce fertility?

Quips & Tips for Couples Coping with Infertility: Physical fitness and fertility - how exercise affects conceiving a baby

Tags: exercise, fertility, infertility

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Comment by Amy K on November 28, 2009 at 11:10pm: Great information Sarah! When you stop to think about it, this absolutely makes sense. I look forward to hearing if others are discussing this and if doctor's are spreading the word about this for women who are trying to conceive. I am curious, also, how this kind of exercise effects our male counterpart and his role in conception.

Comment by Crystal R. on December 1, 2009 at 10:02pm: I wonder how many people will use this as a birth control method. ;)

Comment by Sarah on December 2, 2009 at 4:25pm: AmyK - glad that it makes sense to people. Once I started reading, it made total sense to me, too! I haven't seen much discussion about the subject just yet but hopefully we can encourage people to talk more! I posted about the male counterpart to this phenomenon showing that they have pretty much similar issues. Men, exercise and fertility - a follow-up post talks about his issues with exercising and fertility!

Comment by Sarah on December 2, 2009 at 4:25pm: Crystal, oh lord how I hope that isn't the case. I don't know if it's worth that much effort (in my opinion) to exercise to exhaustion JUST to prevent pregnancy when there are so many other easy-to-take birth control options out there!

Exercise and infertility: how closely are they related?

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