Boosting fertility with vitamin B6
When looking to conceive, it’s important to ingest enough foods that properly nourish your body with vitamin B. Vitamin B6 is actually one of the most important in the set of B vitamins, as it helps regulate your hormones. Being deficient in B6 can cause irregular menstrual cycles, a progesterone imbalance, as well as poor egg and sperm development. B6 can also help lengthen the luteal phase of your cycle.How much do you need?
Recommended daily amounts are between 100 and 200mg’s per day. Earlier in the year I actually started charting my daily meals on SparkPeople.com and realized my daily intake was falling quite short of 100mg’s. To boost your intake with food, include more whole grains, legumes, eggs, and meat in your diet. And try and stay away from processed foods as much as you can, since almost 90% of vitamin B6 can be lost during processing.
Supplements are also a good idea, and most women who are actively trying to conceive should be on a great pre-natal vitamin already. But the amount of B6 in them are not enough to increase your fertility, sometimes only giving you a few milligrams a day. The FDA recommended amount in a multi-vitamin is only 2.5 mg’s! Personally, I’ve been taking a B complex vitamin (B vitamins should be taken together for better absorption) along with my pre-natal vitamin. It’s recommended to start taking an additional 25-50 mg’s per day and increase it after a few months if you’re still having problems. (taking to much can cause health issues as well, so be sure to talk to your doctor or midwife about it!)
How you lose it
- Smoking
- Drinking caffeinated beverages
- Taking chemical hormones, (i.e. The Pill)
- Eating to much protein
- Eating white flour and refined bread products
- Eating to much sugar, and you may think you don’t eat many sweets, but simple sugars are in most processed foods!
Your body actually uses it’s stores of vitamin B6 to rid itself of toxic chemicals from smoking and The Pill, as well as extra caffeine, protein, and sugar. Even if you don’t smoke (or hang around anyone who does) and you’re not taking hormones, with this information you would most likely be well advised to limit or cut out all caffeinated beverages and refined sugars.
And while increasing your daily intake of Vitamin B, please note that it could take at least a couple months to really notice a difference.
** Please do not construe my posts as medical advice, because *ahem*, I am not a doctor or medical professional. I am but a student of Nourishing Nutrition and Natural Health. I only hope to ignite a passion within you to do your own research and begin your own journey to better health. And to make sure you don't miss a single post, you can add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email.
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White flour can decrease B vitamins, too. (Sue Gregg/Emilie Barnes have a good overview on this in one of their books.)
Great post!
Thanks!
Michele
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Ahh, that’s right! Now that you say something I remember reading that a few months ago.
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OK I totally thought that picture in the corner was a cinnamon sugar doughnut with chocolate dripping onto it! Hello! Upon closer inspection I see that I must have just been hungry!!!!
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