Australian researchers have found a fatty diet damages eggs in the ovaries and prevents them from becoming healthy embryos, a finding they say may explain why obese women are often infertile.
While obesity has long been suspected of hampering a woman's ability to conceive, the University of Adelaide research is said to be the first to find a direct scientific link.
Researcher Cadence Minge said experiments on female mice showed that fat has an impact on the egg before it is even fertilised.
"Consuming a diet of high fat causes damage to eggs stored in female ovaries," Minge said. "As a result, when fertilised, these eggs are not able to undergo normal, healthy development into embryos."
Minge said a protein called peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma found in the cells that nourish the egg was the main reason for diet-induced infertility.
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