The relationship between major dietary patterns and fertility status in Iranian men: a case- control study

Abstract

Objective: Reproductive disorders are a global health problem with high prevalence in all parts of the World. Their etiology can be attributed to several factors such as psychological, social, economical and physical. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between major dietary patterns with fertility status in Iranian men in Yazd province.Methods: In this case-control study, 400 infertile men were recruited into study during their fertility investigation in Yazd Reproductive sciences Institute by diagnosis an andrologist as the case group. The control group consisted of 604 healthy men without infertility history that selected from Shahedieh cohort study, recruitment phase from 2015 to 2016 (during one year),Yazd, Iran, according to the inclusion criteria. Multivariate logistic regression was used to determine the relationship between dietary patterns and infertility. All data of the major dietary patterns were analyzed using SPSS V. 22 software.Results: five dietary patterns were extracted. These dietary patterns were grouped as Western, Healthy, Traditional, Fat-based and Mixed. After adjusting for age and level of education, the third tertile of the mixed Dietary Pattern had the highest odds ratio (OR = 7.2; 95% CI, 4.4-11.7) for infertility. In Model 2, the second tertile of the traditional dietary pattern had the lowest Odds ratio (OR = 0.012;95%CI, 0.006-0.023) About infertility. In model 3, Third tertile of western (OR = 6.3; 95% CI, 3.3-12.1) and mix dietary patterns (OR = 2.9; 95% CI, 1.6-5.2) had the highest odds ratio for infertility. The first tertile of each dietary pattern was considered as the reference level.Conclusions: We concluded in this study that adherence to the Western dietary pattern in model 3, Mix and fat-based pattern in model 2 was associated with high risk for infertility. On the other hand, adherence to the traditional and healthy dietary pattern had a protective effect on male infertility. Further studies are needed to confirm the findings of this study.