ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutritional Epidemiology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1682549
This article is part of the Research TopicImmunonutrition: The Role of Foods, Functional Ingredients and Dietary Patterns in Immune System ModulationView all 4 articles
Diet and female fertility: a population-based study re-evaluating the need for prescriptive dietary patterns
Provisionally accepted- 1Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation, Clayton, Australia
- 2The University of Adelaide Robinson Research Institute, North Adelaide, Australia
- 3University of South Carolina, Columbia, United States
- 4Department of Nutrition, Connecting Health Innovations LLC, Columbia, United States
- 5Cancer Council Victoria Cancer Epidemiology Division, Melbourne, Australia
- 6The University of Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Melbourne, Australia
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INTRODUCTION: Diet may impact female fertility via inflammatory pathways, but the value of specific anti-inflammatory dietary indices compared with general healthy eating guidelines is unclear. We examined associations between different measures of dietary inflammation and diet quality with female infertility in a large population-based study. METHODS: Data for 5,489 participants from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health were analysed (1973-1978 cohort assessed in 2009, at 31-36 years old; n=1,289 fertility problems, n=4,200 no fertility problems). Dietary inflammatory potential was assessed using the energy-adjusted dietary inflammatory index (E-DIITM). Diet quality was examined using the dietary guideline index (DGI) and principal component analysis (PCA) for a posteriori patterns. Cross-sectional associations between these indices and self-reported fertility problems were assessed using logistic regression, adjusted for relevant covariates. RESULTS: A diet with greater inflammatory potential was associated with higher odds of self-reported fertility problems (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) per 1-unit increase in E-DII: 1.13, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.06, 1.19), with significant differences between the highest and lowest E-DII quartiles (aOR: 1.53, 95%CI: 1.23, 1.90). Higher dietary quality was associated with lower odds of self-reported fertility problems (aOR per 1-unit increase in DGI: 0.99, 95% CI: 0.99, 0.99), including when comparing highest and lowest DGI quartiles (aOR: 0.76, 95% CI: 0.61, 0.95). In PCA, consumption of a Mediterranean-style dietary pattern was associated with lower odds of self-reported fertility problems (aOR: 0.92, 95% CI: 0.88, 0.97), including when comparing highest and lowest quartiles (aOR: 0.70, 95% CI: 0.57, 0.85). DISCUSSION: Our data suggest that following a generally healthy diet is associated with improved female fertility, whether by adherence to low inflammatory potential diets, Mediterranean-style dietary patterns or national dietary guidelines. These findings suggest that general, guideline-based healthy eating can support female fertility and may offer a flexible alternative to more prescriptive dietary approaches.
Keywords: diet quality, energy-adjusted/dietary inflammatory index (E-DII/DII), mediterranean diet, Fertility, Infertility, Diet, Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH)
Received: 09 Aug 2025; Accepted: 08 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Alesi, Grieger, Teede, Hébert, Moss, Price, Hodge, Moran and Mousa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Aya Mousa, aya.mousa@monash.edu
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