Micronutrients and Fertility

What are micronutrients?

Most people know they should be aiming to eat a nutrient-rich diet, but how much do you know about micronutrients? Despite their diminutive label, micronutrients are vital for preventing disease and helping your body to grow and repair itself. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a micronutrient as ‘a substance that is essential in minute amounts to the growth and health of a living organism’. We humans have traditionally got our essential nutrients from eating a varied and balanced diet — and this is what health experts recommend in an ideal world. However, our changing lifestyle and environment have contributed to making it more difficult to ensure we get the variety of micronutrients we need – this is where supplementation can really help.

The importance of micronutrients when trying to conceive

Modern diets are calorific and contain processed foods, sugar, refined flour and vegetable oils –  this can cause oxidative stress, resulting in DNA fragmentation, reduced fertility and possibly early pregnancy loss.

Everyone knows about antioxidants – but they may not be a good thing.  They are often taken in all sorts of supplements, but they are very strong and lead to the opposite problem of oxidative stress, namely reductive stress.  Reductive stress leads to sperm DNA decondensation in the male and DNA problems in the female.

DNA decondensation means that the sperm cannot fertilise the egg. It happens when the DNA is unraveled in the head of the sperm. This can be the result of taking antioxidant supplements such as vitamins E and C, CoQ10 and selenium. 

This is why it is so important to get exactly the right micronutrients for optimum health. What you eat is crucial in regulation of bodily processes such as your fertility. In some ways, your fertility depends on what you eat, yet even the most conscientious person can struggle to eat the perfect diet. Taking female fertility supplements will ensure that healthy eggs are produced to give you the best chance of conceiving. 

Fortunately a nutritious diet does not mean that you have to give up all the treat foods that you enjoy, it just means that you have those foods in moderation while including the right foods plus a supplement. 

To produce healthy eggs and sperm you need to be eating a balanced diet:

 ✔ Complex carbohydrates – whole grains such as oats, wholemeal bread and brown rice

✔ Reducing sugar intake (watch out for hidden sugar in food, such as pasta sauces)

✔ Reduce or eliminate caffeine

✔ Eliminate processed foods as much as possible

✔ High fibre foods

✔ A colourful array of fruit and vegetables every day

✔ Less red meat and more fish

✔ Avoid artificial sweeteners

✔ Choosing organic where you can 

✔ Avoid trans-fats

✔ High fat foods which are healthy and nutritious such as nuts, avocado, oily fish and chia seeds

It is often difficult to get all the micronutrients you need when you are busy, especially when you are not preparing the food yourself — grabbing ready-made lunches from supermarkets or dining out, or simply eating processed foods for convenience. That’s why many scientists advise taking supplements with micronutrients to ensure your body has all the nutrients it needs.

The importance of micronutrients in pregnancy

Micronutrients are also needed for energy production; fertilisation and pregnancy are very energy-demanding processes — there is a lot going on! 

Energy is required for:  

• Creation of sperm and development of egg cells
• Sperm motility, ovulation and creation of the embryo
• Implantation and the initial growth of the embryo
• Continued rapid growth of the foetus

Most pregnant women are too busy or too tired to be able to plan perfectly balanced meals every day and this is where micronutrient supplements play a vital role; giving the developing foetus the nutrition it needs to grow.

The official UK guidelines advise that you need to take 10 micrograms of vitamin D daily throughout pregnancy and breastfeeding and 400 micrograms of folic acid each day, from before pregnancy to 12 months minimum. Vitamin D helps you and your baby’s bone health and folic acid reduces the risks of birth defects (like spina bifida). Trials comparing pregnant women taking placebo supplements versus micronutrient supplements have found that those taking nutritional supplements had fewer babies born too small and fewer premature births. It is important to note that these UK guidelines are just one example of micronutrient support and do not take into account other vital nutrients. 

How Impryl can help

It is crucial that you choose the right supplement to take from pre-conception to birth so that it works helping the egg/sperm and embryo development right through to foetal growth and birth. There are also supplements on the market which can actually impede your fertility — such as those containing strong antioxidants which cause DNA decondensation. Impryl® is unique as it provides balanced support to your metabolism, neither oxidative stress nor reductive stress, essential to ensure that you are at your optimum fertility level. 

This metabolic support delivers three distinct benefits to you:

Antioxidant defence — Impryl® contains activated micronutrients that help your body to produce Glutathione (GSH), the body’s natural antioxidant, and ensures that GSH is produced exactly when and where it is needed. The micronutrients within Impryl are proven to help prevent both DNA fragmentation and DNA decondensation.

Energy support — GSH is also vital to keep your cells healthy and producing the optimum energy output.

Optimised gene expression (epigenetics) — Impryl® contains critical nutrients which enable the cells to methylate genes. This ensures that the correct genes are expressed, which in turn gives us optimal egg and sperm cells.

Taking Impryl has been recommended by fertility experts to help optimise the quality of your gametes, please check out the videos in the link below to learn more.