Infertility in obese women may be due to damaged eggs, Brigham study finds

Infertility in obese women may be due to damaged eggs, Brigham study finds

Obesity has long been associated with infertility as well as lower success rates with in vitro fertilization, and now researchers think they understand why: Obese women are more likely to have abnormalities in their eggs that make them impossible to fertilize.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital infertility researchers examined nearly 300 eggs that failed to fertilize during IVF in both severely obese women and those with a normal body weight.

They found that severely obese women were far more likely to have abnormally arranged chromosomes within their eggs compared with women who weren’t overweight, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal Human Reproduction.