A review of the effects of lifestyle and nutrition on infertility in couples

Abstract

Infertility is one of the most important life crises that leads to numerous psychological problems and stressful experiences. Investigating the factors affecting infertility is of high significance to help these people in the midwifery profession. One of these important factors is lifestyle. The purpose of present study is to review the studies conducted on the effects of lifestyle on infertility in couples. This systematic review was conducted by searching the keywords including infertility, lifestyle, nutrition and couples in valid databases such as Google Scholar, Web of Sciences, PubMed and Scopus from 2010 to 2021; a total of 198 articles were found. As many as 22 articles were extracted from these articles. Inclusion criteria included originality, the article’s being either in English or Persian, and consistency with the purpose of the study. Exclusion criteria included the lack of access to the full text of the article. Among the reviewed articles, 6 articles (27.27%) had been published in Persian and 16 articles (72.73%) had been published in English. In 16 studies, the effect of lifestyle and its dimensions (exercise and physical activity, diet, tobacco and alcohol use) on infertility of couples had been confirmed.

Health Literacy, General Health, and Lifestyle among Infertile Men and Women in the Southeastern Iran

“…Such a program is likely to result in health promotion, wellbeing, self-actualization, confidence, satisfaction, and better feelings among populations. It seems that paying attention to this type of lifestyle may include general healthy behaviors throughout one's life ( 2 ). In addition, another study showed that health literacy levels were associated with mental, physical, and environmental aspects, yet they were not associated with lifestyle ( 38 ).…”

“…The HELIA Questionnaire was localized by Montazeri, et al ,with its reliability and validity confirmed(the Cronbach's alpha coefficient ranging from 0.72 to 0.89)( 16 ). This questionnaire had two parts, including part “a” on demographic characteristics that contained 6 questions (marital status, sex, age, education level, residence place, and occupation)and part “b” with 33 items in the five fields of accessibility (6 items), reading skills (4 items), comprehension (7 items), evaluation (4 items), and decision making (12 items).The questions were ranked as quite easy ( 5 ), easy ( 4 ), neither easy nor hard ( 3 ), hard ( 2 ), and quite hard ( 1 ). In addition, the maximum and minimum scores of this questionnaire were 165 and 33, respectively.…”

“…Goldberg and Williams(1988) reported that the GHQ was translated into about 38 languages, with its validity reported in over 50 studies published( 17 ).The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of this questioner was 0.90( 18 ).The general health questionnaire (with 28 questions) has the four subscales of somatic symptoms (items1-7), anxiety(items 8-14),social dysfunction (items 15-21), and depression(items 22-28),each of which having seven questions. The scoring method in this questionnaire was based on the Likert scale (0, 1, 2, 3).In fact, four possible answers of ( 1 ) not at all, ( 2 ) not more than usual, ( 3 ) rather more than usual, and ( 4 ) much more than usual were available for each item. A low score indicated health, and a high score indicated a disorder.…”

“…On the other side, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines infertility as a global public health issue and the failure to have a pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sex ( 1 ). According to the WHO, over 1.5 million Iranian couples suffer from infertility ( 2 ). Women and men are equally responsible for infertility causes.…”