Not ready for a baby? Protect your fertility

Watch your diet, avoid smoking and consider freezing your eggs

By Denise Schipani
Women's Health
updated 8:49 a.m. ET, Fri., June. 20, 2008

You've yet to hear a single tick-tock, but lurking beneath your killer abs is a biological clock that will start buzzing eventually — and you can only hit the snooze button so many times.

So what do you do if you're not ready to push out a baby right this second but think you'll want to become a mom someday?

Luckily, fertility isn't a total crapshoot. And though you can't put off pregnancy indefinitely (despite exceptions like Marcia Cross, your odds of conceiving drop substantially after age 35), there's plenty you can do to help keep your body in peak baby-making form.

Watch your diet
What's good for your arteries is also good for your eggs. Jorge Chavarro, M.D., a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health and co-author of "The Fertility Diet," tracked the fat intake of nearly 18,000 women as they tried to get pregnant. Women who gobbled more healthy unsaturated fats (think olive oil and avocados) were less likely to experience infertility due to ovulation problems than those whose diets contained more trans fats.

Don't worry, be happy
Stress interferes with the brain's bulletins that tell your ovaries to do their monthly job of rolling out an egg, says Sarah L. Berga, M.D., chair of the ob-gyn department at Emory University in Atlanta. If you're a type A (for anxiety and angst), figure out a calm-down solution that works for you, whether it's practicing tai chi or thrashing around to the Foo Fighters, before you get ready to pee on the stick.

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The Pill makes women pick bad mates

Ability to sniff out a compatible partner affected by taking contraceptives

By Jeanna Bryner
Live Science
updated 1:17 p.m. ET, Wed., Aug. 13, 2008

Birth control pills could screw up a woman's ability to sniff out a compatible mate, a new study finds.

While several factors can send a woman swooning, including big brains and brawn, body odor can be critical in the final decision, the researchers say. That's because beneath a woman's flowery fragrance or a guy's musk the body sends out aromatic molecules that indicate genetic compatibility.

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes are involved in immune response and other functions, and the best mates are those that have different MHC smells than you. The new study reveals, however, that when women are on the pill they prefer guys with matching MHC odors.

MHC genes churn out substances that tell the body whether a cell is a native or an invader. When individuals with different MHC genes mate, their offspring's immune systems can recognize a broader range of foreign cells, making them more fit.

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Treadmill Exercise Retrains Brain And Body Of Stroke Victims

ScienceDaily (Aug. 29, 2008) — People who walk on a treadmill even years after stroke damage can significantly improve their health and mobility, changes that reflect actual "rewiring" of their brains, according to research spearheaded at Johns Hopkins.

"This is great news for stroke survivors because results clearly demonstrate that long-term stroke damage is not immutable and that with exercise it's never too late for the brain and body to recover," says Daniel Hanley, M.D., professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The study's results, published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, suggest that patients' brains may retain the capacity to rewire through a treadmill exercise program months or years after conventional physical therapy has ended.

The research was conducted by scientists at Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland, and the Department of Veterans Affairs Maryland VA Medical Center at their Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC). Researchers at the GRECC, led by Richard F. Macko, M.D., and Andrew P. Goldberg, M.D., have developed treadmill therapy for stroke patients over the past decade. Investigators at all three institutions combined efforts to recruit 71 patients who had a stroke at least six months earlier, with an average time lapse of nearly four years. At the study's onset, half of the subjects could walk without assistance, while the rest used a cane, a walker or a wheelchair.

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