hey it's Stephanie here with Mahalo comm we are talking about infertility now while let's say you've been diagnosed with infertility there are not only some medical treatments but there are also some things you can do naturally to boost your fertility it's writing us now is dr. John Jay to talk about some of those things let's first start with men sure it's always best to optimize one's health when approaching fertility so really simple things for example for men think of what you're eating you know healthier foods Whole Foods foods rich in the antioxidants especially important for men taking a supplement for example zinc is found to be important for sperm production those are all healthy ways of eating also cutting out bad things so cutting back on caffeine and alcohol and cutting out smoking and or recreational drugs or if those are important things to consider just as basic day-to-day activities what about stress is that not a huge fertility killer yeah stress is that is it the silent killer in my opinion we can't measure it in the blood so doctors don't talk about a lot but it affects the whole body it's the hormone cortisol is to create your own stress and cortisol couches the reproductive hormones that's really important you know interesting ly for men though as opposed to women Keith can be a real problem key to the school area so men using their laptops on their lap or men take long hot tub sessions or long long sessions in the sauna or use a or cycle for long or long distances that all brings heat to the testicles and sperm are produced at a very specific temperature so it gotta be careful but he also lubricants some lubricants kills burn so you have to use a sperm friendly lubricant those are all important and one final one is ejaculating men have to ejaculate regular if you let the sperm back up they die and they release bad things in the area to other viable sperm so it's best not to wait more than seven days when you're trying to get pregnant not to abstain for more than seven days I'm sure men are happy about that that's it yeah I've never never found a guy who's contesting their job now let's talk about caffeine there's been some debate as to how caffeine affects fertility yeah you know again there's a lot of studies both showing no effect and others showing significant effect I think the idea being that since there are studies showing some effect and we don't really know what a safe level is its best to perhaps back off an alcohol caffeine I'm not sure he has a completely cut about but been trying to get pregnant you have to take care of yourself about some of these herbal supplements I had a friend who tried maca powder which is like a root from you know that the Incas used way back when I mean do you think that supplements are a good idea well for men there are certain vitamin supplements that have a variety of different minerals and much like them and I do think are helpful most supplements we don't have the information on it's anecdotal whether whether they work or not I think most of them are harmless however you should not a man should not pursue you know one particular supplement as the do all end all the magic sort of treatment and and avoid other more useful modalities towards fertility all right doctor thank you so much some great advice if you'd like more information about any of these important topics you can click the links here to my left or you can subscribe to the homo parity thanks for watching I'm Stephanie Stan