This week's Newsweek cover story on "the Fertility Diet" had me intrigued. As somebody who struggled for years with infertility I tend to roll my eyes at all the craptacular advice out there and the implication that if you were not just such a trainwreck you'd probably be pregnant already – see "Just relax!"
On the other hand, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence about my particular cause, polycystic ovarian syndrome or PCOS, being more a metabolic disorder than a reproductive one, pointing to increased insulin resistance as the culprit behind the weight gain, acne, hair growth and other lovelies associated with it. Most women with PCOS swear by a low-carb diet as the only non-medical way to lose weight and manage  symptoms. While the authors don’t advocate  lower carb  dieting, they do recommend lower glycemic-index carbs, which are generally less refined and slower to digest. Not surprising, but interesting that what PCOS women have talked about for years is being validated by the medical establishment.
The article's authors based their recommendations on data from the long-running Nurses' Health Study, which has tracked thousands of nurses longitudinally. They looked at diet and exercise as they influenced the participants' attempts to have a baby.
One big surprise – they found full-fat dairy products such as whole milk and ice cream were actually beneficial to fertility. Guess those red-wine-and-Haagen-Daz  binges after each failed cycle were not so horrible after all.