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Couples with high cholesterol face longer time to pregnancy
Cholesterol concentrations in men and women affect fertility, highlighting the importance of lipid homeostasis for couples trying to conceive a child, according to research published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
“We’ve long known that high cholesterol levels increase the risk for heart disease,” Enrique F. Schisterman, MS, PhD, of the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Md., said in a press release. “In addition to safeguarding their health, our results suggest that couples wishing to achieve pregnancy could improve their chances by first ensuring that their cholesterol levels are in an acceptable range.”
Enrique F. Schisterman
For a population-based cohort study, Schisterman and colleagues looked at 501 heterosexual couples from 16 counties throughout Michigan and Texas; these couples were identified as planning pregnancy in the near future. The couples, who had all taken part in the LIFE Study, had discontinued contraception and were not being treated for infertility.
The investigators examined blood samples for total serum free cholesterol levels, without distinguishing between subtypes. After adjusting for age, BMI, race and education in relationship to female, male and joint couple lipid concentrations, the couples’ fecundability ORs and CIs were determined.
The researchers followed the couples for 12 months or until they conceived a human chorionic gonadotropin pregnancy. During the study, 100 couples withdrew — some having re-evaluated their choice to have a child. Of the remainder, 347 couples conceived and 54 did not.
At follow-up, serum free cholesterol levels were higher among men and women in couples who did not became pregnant (women, P=.04; men, P=.009). In models based on both individual and couples’ concentrations, high levels in female partners were associated with significantly longer time to pregnancy (individual models: fecundability OR=0.98; 95% CI, 0.97-0.99, and couple models: fecundability OR=0.98; 95% CI, 0.97-0.99). Male free cholesterol concentrations were only related to time to pregnancy in the couple-based models (fecundability OR=0.98, 95% CI, 0.97-0.99). The associations were unlikely to be explained by potential confounding factors such as unmeasured diet.
“These findings fill an important data gap regarding the association between lipid concentrations and couple fecundity, particularly in light of the increased prevalence of overweight couples attempting pregnancy,” the researchers wrote.
Disclosure: This work was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and National Institutes of Health Contracts.
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