Can I Improve Egg Quality in my 30’s?

Yes. Colloquial knowledge is that females are born with their eggs already formed. But did you know that in order to produce a mature, viable egg each month, the eggs we’re born with, called primordial follicles, go through an extensive maturation process? This process takes much longer than one month. It takes about three months for the egg inside a follicle to mature. But that follicle was actually selected and began going through the stages of follicle maturation an entire year before ovulation occurs! During this year (and especially the three months immediately prior to ovulation of a particular egg), the follicle grows and develops its egg in a complex hormonal interplay. Circulating hormones from a gland in the brain like FSH and LH, and local hormones produced in the ovary and even in the follicle itself, control this process.

Egg growth requires sufficient nutrients as well as hormone levels to proceed optimally. It is a process that is vulnerable to things like blood sugar stability, adrenal gland health and inflammation. So it follows that there are many more factors at play here than just your age, and there is much that can be done to improve egg quality. Most of those things will also improve your whole health and quality of life.

Eggs are also rich in mitochondria, the cell’s powerhouse for energy (while sperm don’t contain any mitochondria). So supporting mitochondrial function improves egg quality.

While there certainly are supplements on the market that target egg quality and these can help, having the foundations of ovarian health assessed and treated by our Toronto naturopaths gives you a plan that is specific to your body and your lifestyle.  Do you have PCOS?  Hypoglycemia?  Irregular or short periods or PMS?  Fatigue?  Hypothyroidism?  Indigestion, IBS or other digestive symptoms?  Naturopathic medicine treats the whole person as a system and science is constantly proving to us how connected each body system is.  Improving egg quality may not be as simple as a pill but it is attainable most of the time.