Pesticides reduce live birth rate of women undergoing IVF

Previous studies have shown that pesticides affect the live birth rate in rodents.  But very little has been done to examine this in humans.

Today a paper has been published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine by a group from Boston, USA.  They looked at the type of fruit and vegetables women were eating and related this to their chance of a live birth following IVF.

The women in the study were participants in the Environment and Reproductive Health (EARTH) Study, which is a large study that started in 2006 to identify determinants of fertility among couples having treatment at the Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility Center (Boston, Massachusetts).

They looked at 325 women who completed a diet assessment and subsequently underwent 541 IVF cycles.

The authors classified fruit and vegetables into high and low pesticide residue status.  High residue foods included potatoes, peaches and strawberries.  Low residue foods included peas, avocado, onions and grapefruit.

They found that women who ate more high pesticide residue fruit and vegetables had a lower live birth rate per initiated IVF cycle than those eating low pesticide residue foods.   “Compared with women in the lowest quartile of high-pesticide fruit and vegetable intake (<1.0 servings/day), women in the highest quartile (2.3 servings/day) had 18% (95%CI, 5%-30%) lower probability of clinical pregnancy and 26% (95%CI, 13%-37%) lower probability of live birth.”

In conclusion they said “These data suggest that dietary pesticide exposure within the range of typical human exposure may be associated with adverse reproductive consequences.”

It is amazing that this is the first study of this kind.  Further studies are urgently needed.

Image credit – http://agroinfo.com/en/news/russian-ministry-agriculture-will-apply-stricter-rules-limit-pesticides-import/