Dr. Lucky Sekhon

Now, for sure, there could be a sperm component as well, but sometimes you can actually isolate out for that.

When you're going through treatment, there are things you can do to try to improve the sperm that you're using.

You can sort them differently.

And still, you might see this attrition.

And they have these telltale risk factors for insulin resistance, which is actually quite common and prevalent.

So many women have some element of insulin resistance if they're struggling with their weight, especially women with PCOS.

They're kind of just predisposed or a setup for being a little bit resistant to insulin, which is a hormone that helps you to store your blood sugar.

in your cells.

And what that does if you tend to have resistance to that hormone is you end up producing more insulin.

And insulin actually acts like a growth factor on the ovaries and it can make your ovaries overproduce testosterone.

And having that unhealthy imbalance

And now that's the environment where the eggs are undergoing all that genetic reorganization.

It can make them more prone to errors.

So anything that is an external influence that can make those errors more likely is something that you could modify to try to improve egg quality.

things to do to improve the quality?

Well, smoking is another big example, right?

And this isn't sexy advice.

Everyone knows that we're going to say smoking is not good for you.

But that's another one where studies have shown objectively that this can not only affect your egg quality and your chances of getting pregnant with or without treatment, but it can also lead to a more rapid depletion in your egg count, and it can lead to earlier menopause.

So again, it's not sexy advice, but I always say whatever is better for heart health typically is better for fertility.