Exercise

Whenever weight is mentioned as a factor in infertility, I automatically think of being overweight. This is definitely not surprising to me since in the last ten years being underweight was not a personal danger. I gained after college, gained even more with fertility treatments, and had trouble losing for a myriad of reasons - though I choose to mostly blame my extra 15 (or 20 or more) on infertility. Anyway, I realize that not talking about the hazard of being underweight is short-sighted since there are many women who may unwittingly be struggling because they weigh too little. Whereas women who have excess body weight can be faced with an overproduction of hormones that disrupt… [more]

"Our experienced medical journalist Daniel DeNoon took your questions about fertility issues to specialists. Here's what he found out. " Although this question and answer from www.webmd.com doesn't deal directly with exercise addiction, it does deal with extreme exercise and biking. While reading through the answers, I was surprized to learn some new things. The person writing in was asking if biking and large amounts of exercise can affect male fertility. A couple of doctors submitted their answers and came up with these answers. The first physician gave answers that had to do with high temperatures that can affect sperm and also the use of recreational drugs and binge drinking. Their advice was to have sperm testing done with a reputable testing site. The second physician had this to say, which… [more]

I knew that eating disorders have an effect on fertility. I knew that being overweight and underweight have an effect on fertility. I also know about anorexia and bulimia. But exercise addiction? I hadn't ever heard of it. The whole back page of one of our newspaper segments was devoted to this "dangerous addiction". I found a complementary article on www.active.com titled, "Know the signs of unhealthy exercise addiction" Exercise addiction is like any other addiction. A brain response to exercising that causes the afflicted to deny all areas of life besides exercise. This can lead to being underweight, fatigue and overuse injuries. Also in females it can lead to amenorrhea which disrupts or halts the menstrual cycle. From the above article, here are some… [more]