Foods to boost (or bust) fertility

Consuming more of certain nutrients found in fruits and vegetables, including folate, vitamin C and lycopene, was linked with healthier sperm counts in a 2009 study of 61 men published in the Fertility and Sterility journal. Researchers speculate that the antioxidants improve sperm quality.

Say it ain’t soy! Long-term consumption of a soy-rich diet may decrease sperm count, according to recent research in the journal Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. Male mice fed a diet high in soy (the human equivalent of about 50 to 100 grams of soy daily, or about a 1/3 to 2/3 cup of edamame) for their entire lives had sperm counts 25 percent lower and litter sizes 21 percent smaller than mice fed a soy-free diet. Scientists also noted changes in genes involved in sperm motility in the mice that ate soy. Researchers suspect that soy’s isoflavones, compounds that act as weak estrogens in the body, may lower sperm quality.