CAFFEINE REDUCES A WOMAN'S FERTILITY

Yep.  Whether it's in the form of cola, chocolate, coffee or tea, caffeine reduces a woman's fertility.  

Okay, but by how much?  In other words, how much caffeine does one have to consume to see a drop in a woman's fecundity?  And what is the percentage in reduction of a woman's fertility?

Some forms of caffeine I can't live without.  I could if they were killing me, but anything less than that, no, I could not live without them.  Those forms?  Coffee and chocolate.  As for coffee, I love it hot and black.  And I am always on the lookout for the benefits, the risks, and the unknowns of coffee.  The other is chocolate, 85% dark is best.  One unknown of coffee that became less so to me yesterday was the fact that caffeine reduces fertility in women.  Whoa!  I'd never heard that before.  But apparently, it has no effect on male fertility.  Go figure.  
The finding is an old one, 1989, in fact.  

104 healthy women who had been attempting to become pregnant for three months were interviewed about their use of caffeinated beverages, alcohol, and cigarettes. In their subsequent cycles, women who consumed more than the equivalent of one cup of coffee per day were half as likely to become pregnant, per cycle, as women who drank less. A dose-response effect was present.

What's interesting is that these effects were discovered among competing products--alcohol and cigarette smoking--that I would have thought had detrimental effects on fertility.  It is just interesting to see how certain products never get questioned and thus become legitimized as healthy or sociable.  And so we render their effects on our bodies and mind as innocuous.  But make no mistake, there is a war on out there, and the main theater of this battle is your body.  

So if you're trying to get pregnant, ixnay on the coffee, eh.  But not just coffee per se but caffeine.  That means cola too, green tea, you know, that healthy drink.  And probably the most painful form of caffeine that you'll need to jettison is chocolate.  O, say it isn't so.  Well, if' you're trying to get pregnant, ixnay, on the Cadbury, eh.  

So we should qualify some terms.  When the report says that caffeine reduces female fertility, what exactly does that mean?  In other words, reduces it by how much?  And how much coffee produced this effect? According to the study, it's 50%.  So if you do drink coffee and you want to get pregnant, it means that you'll have to work twice as hard at getting pregnant.  Hmm.  Maybe there is an upside to drinking coffee while trying to get pregnant. 

Fecundability of 104 healthy women attempting to become pregnant was halved by consumption of the equivalent of 1 cup of brewed coffee or more daily. 

What I found interesting is that whereas caffeine interfered with pregnancy, analgesics, alcohol, marijuana, weight (like in being over or underweight), or the husband's caffeine consumption had no influence on fecundity.  

Those consuming over 3150 mg caffeine per month, the median, were considered in the high consumption group, and those consuming less the low group. Fecundability, the probability of becoming clinically pregnant in a given menstrual cycle, when expressed as a ratio, averaged 0.59 over the 3rd to 8th cycle, and 0.53 after 6 more months in the high consumption group. Multivariate analysis, controlling for age, the frequency of intercourse, and age at menarche, found no effect for these variables, nor for smoking, vitamins, analgesics, alcohol, marijuana, weight, height, or husband's caffeine consumption. 

Disappointing is the fact that the study was unable to discover how caffeine disrupts fertility.  "The mechanism of action of caffeine on fecundability is unknown."

One piece of good news that came out of the study is that caffeine is NOT a carcinogen.  That is good news and one less thing that you have to worry about if you do drink coffee.  

Evaluation: There is inadequate evidence for the carcinogenicity in humans of caffeine. There is inadequate evidence for the carcinogenicity in experimental animals of caffeine. Overall evaluation: Caffeine is not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans (Group 3).