Hello everyone, Monica Reinagle here, the nutrition diva, here with your quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous welcome.

A new study was released last week that I know a lot of you are going to be concerned about.

It seems that eating fruits and vegetables that are known to have high pesticide residues could make it harder to get pregnant.

There's bound to be a lot of hand wringing over this in certain corners of the internet,

so I want to put these findings in perspective. for those of you who are trying to conceive,

as well as anyone who's just generally concerned about pesticides and their effects on health.

The study was overseen by Dr. Jorge Chavaro. He's an expert in reproductive medicine

at the Harvard School of Public Health. Some years ago, Dr. Chavaro and his colleagues

published a book called The Fertility Diet, which promoted a dietary

regimen that was supposed to increase your chances of getting pregnant.

And I talked about the Fertility diet in a previous episode.

This latest study looked at several hundred women who were undergoing treatment at a fertility

center right there in Boston.

These women filled out a questionnaire about their dietary

habits prior to seeking treatment. The researchers then analyzed these

questionnaires to see what kinds of fruits and vegetables these women were

eating and how much.

They wanted to see whether or not there was a link between their estimated pesticide exposure and fertility.

And sure enough, they found one. The women who had the highest estimated

pesticide exposure from fruits and vegetables were less likely to get

pregnant than those with the lowest estimated exposure.

And it's not too hard to imagine why this might be.

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