What I Would Do to Improve Egg Quality, as a Fertility Nutritionist

The nutrients, diet approach and lifestyle changes I'd actually prioritise

People often ask me what I'd focus on if I were trying to support my own egg quality. It's a fair question, because there's so much noise out there, and not all of it holds up. Here's my food-first answer, with the research behind each piece, rather than a generic list of "fertility superfoods."

I always start from food. But food quality has changed, soil depletion and intensive farming have reduced nutrient density in a lot of what we eat, and digestion, stress and gut health all affect how much of what we do eat actually gets absorbed. A considered, well-chosen supplement routine, built around what testing or your diet suggests you're missing, earns its place alongside a good diet, not instead of it.

Methylfolate

Folate (vitamin B9) needs to be converted into its active form, methylfolate, before the body can use it, and that conversion step is where a lot of people run into trouble, particularly those with common variations in the MTHFR gene that make conversion less efficient. Methylfolate supports methylation, a process that happens in every cell, including DNA synthesis within the developing egg.

It also plays a role in keeping homocysteine in check. Several studies link higher homocysteine levels to lower implantation and clinical pregnancy rates during IVF, particularly in women with the less efficient MTHFR variant, and lower homocysteine in follicular fluid is associated with better oocyte maturity and embryo development. Folate itself also helps buffer oxidative stress. Leafy greens, legumes and liver all contain folate, but for anyone with reduced MTHFR function, a methylated form taken as a supplement bypasses that conversion bottleneck entirely.

CoQ10

This remains one of the most researched nutrients for egg quality specifically. CoQ10 supports the mitochondrial energy production that eggs rely on heavily during maturation. Research in women with diminished ovarian reserve undergoing IVF shows improved ovarian response to stimulation with CoQ10 pretreatment, and follicular fluid CoQ10 levels are linked to better embryo grading. Oily fish, organ meats and poultry provide some dietary CoQ10, but supplementing is the more reliable way to reach research-backed doses.

Explore My Method

Antioxidants more broadly

"Antioxidant" covers a range of vitamins and minerals that help limit oxidative damage to cells, which matters for egg quality given how vulnerable the maturation process is to that kind of stress. Alpha-lipoic acid has shown promise in research on older women undergoing IVF, with one study linking it to more mature eggs and better quality embryos. Zinc supports follicle development and DNA repair. Vitamin C and vitamin E both appear in research linking better antioxidant status to reduced time to pregnancy.

• Alpha-lipoic acid: studied particularly in older women undergoing IVF
• Zinc: involved in follicle development and DNA repair processes
• Vitamin C and vitamin E: linked to reduced time to pregnancy in some research
• Best obtained through a varied, colourful diet first, with supplementation layered on where testing or dietary gaps suggest it

The diet approach I recommend

For an overall pattern, I recommend the Mediterranean diet. The research here is mixed: a meta-analysis of ART outcomes found an association between Mediterranean diet adherence and higher live birth rates across pooled studies, though not a consistent link with clinical pregnancy specifically, and some individual studies found no significant association once other factors were accounted for. One cohort study found a notably higher likelihood of clinical pregnancy and live birth among non-obese women under 35 with high adherence. The picture is a genuine association in several but not all studies, not a guarantee.

What holds up regardless of the ART-specific data is that the pattern itself, plenty of vegetables, fruit, legumes, wholegrains, nuts and seeds, good quality fats like olive oil, and more fish than red meat, gives you a strong antioxidant and healthy fat intake, both with clearer individual research behind them for egg quality specifically. Omega-3 fats, found in oily fish, nuts and seeds, are strongly anti-inflammatory, and animal research links omega-3 intake to a slower rate of ovarian ageing.

In practice, this means building most meals around a large portion of plants, a palm-sized portion of protein (fish, poultry, meat, tofu or legumes), a thumb-sized serving of extra fats like nuts or olive oil, and pairing any carbohydrates with protein and fat to keep blood sugar steady. Nothing is off the table entirely. It's a pattern, not a set of rules.

Lifestyle factors worth addressing

Reducing exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals is worth prioritising where practical. Pesticide exposure is linked in research to lower pregnancy rates, and produce that grows above ground with a thin skin (berries, leafy greens, tomatoes) tends to carry higher pesticide residue, so choosing organic for these specifically, within your budget, is a reasonable place to focus rather than trying to go entirely organic overnight.

Plastic exposure is worth reducing too. Animal studies show microplastic exposure reducing the number of oocytes retrieved and increasing the proportion of poor-quality oocytes, and while human data is still developing, swapping plastic food storage for glass, avoiding plastic water bottles, and never heating food in plastic are all straightforward changes.

Alcohol is one of the clearer factors. Research links alcohol intake to reduced embryo quality during IVF, with as few as four drinks a week associated with a lower live birth rate in one study. You don't need to remove it completely, but meaningfully cutting back is worth doing in a preconception window.

Exercise genuinely helps too, supporting mitochondrial health and, more broadly, hormonal balance, cycle regularity and body composition. The type matters though. Regular high-intensity or vigorous exercise is linked in research to anovulation and luteal phase issues in some healthy women trying to conceive, so I steer people toward strength training, gentler cardio, and restorative movement like yoga or Pilates over consistently pushing into high intensity.

The summary

This doesn't reverse age or guarantee an outcome. But within the 90-day window that eggs take to mature, addressing methylation support, mitochondrial and antioxidant status, an anti-inflammatory diet pattern, and reducing avoidable toxin and alcohol exposure gives your body a well-supported environment to work with. That's what I'd do, and what I help my own clients build, one adjustment at a time rather than all at once.

Explore Programs