“Maternal body mass index associates with blastocyst euploidy and live birth rates: the tip of an iceberg?” is the title of the interesting study by the GeneraLife team published in ‘Reproductive BioMedicine On line“: first of all, the work ‘photographed’ a decrease in the chances of pregnancy, due to an increase in the risk of abortion, after the transfer of euploid embryos, in women with BMI (body mass index) greater than 25, therefore overweight, but not obese.
“A first important result that we can draw from the work, therefore – explains Gemma Fabozzi, first author of the paper, embryologist and nutritionist at the GeneraLife center in Rome – is to have highlighted the importance of BMI in the birth rate, even when the patient is in ‘simple’ overweight, not obese”. Furthermore, the study found that the increase in BMI is associated with the increased risk of chromosomal errors in embryos (aneuploidies).
“This is an association – continues Fabozzi – obviously subordinated to the age of the woman, which is the predominant factor in the onset of aneuploidy. Despite this, overweight women show a slight increase in the risk of chromosomal errors in embryos at any maternal age.
The key message of this study is, therefore, that it would be useful to analyze the patient’s metabolic profile even when a euploid blastocyst has already been obtained for transfer. Given the precious value of this embryo for an infertile woman, and in the face of the difficulty of obtaining it in advanced maternal age, in women with overweight problems it could be clinically relevant to intervene with an ad hoc nutritional regimen before transfer to the uterus.
For fertile women, on the other hand, the study emphasizes the importance of prevention and maintenance of an adequate nutritional regimen to reduce the severity of disorders of a reproductive nature”. Body mass index (BMI), say the authors, is a gross marker, but it certainly represents an important wake-up call. Future studies, aimed at identifying more precise parameters of the nutritional-metabolic aspect, are certainly desirable also in the field of human reproduction.
