Australian research workers have discovered that fatty diets damage eggs in the female internal reproductive organ (ovary) and forbids them from turning healthy fertilized eggs, a finding answers the problem why obese women are often infertile.

The experiment, by a group of researchers from the University of Adelaide led by PhD researcher Cadence Minge, was carried out on pregnant mice, and the results showed that fat has an affect on the egg before it is even inseminated.

Minge said, “Consuming a diet of high fat causes damage to eggs stored in female ovaries. As a result, when fertilized, these eggs are not able to undergo normal, healthy development into embryos.”

Investigators brought out that the key reason of diet-induced infertility in mice is a protein that can be found in cells, which nourish eggs.

While carrying on their analysis the researchers noticed that a fatty diet blocks up eggs from growing into healthy fertilized eggs, thereby dissembling fertility.

“As a result, when fertilized, these eggs are not able to undergo normal, healthy development into embryos,:” Dr Minge stated.

“We hope our findings will encourage women to consider carefully the impact of their lifestyle choices on their own future and that of their children,” she added.

But, the research workers also originate a method to entirely reverse the outcomes, thus permitting the eggs to build up into healthy embryos.

This was done by making use of the diabetes drug Avandia.

Using the drug the investigators selectively targeted a protein known as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARg) and discovered they could undo the damage caused.

Minge said, “The drug enables us to switch on the protein, thereby changing the way in which the ovaries sense and respond to fats. Embryo development rates are restored, and the cellular differentiation of the early embryo is improved. Also, the drug itself can have possible harmful side-effects, and more research is needed to find other, safer ways of activating the protein.”

However, Dr Minge also warned women that Avandia is not a safe treatment option for obese, infertile women at this stage.