If you and your spouse have difficulty having a child, you might want to check, among other things, your cholesterol level. A new study suggests that having high cholesterol levels does not just up a person's risks for heart disease, stroke and premature death. It can also affect a couple's chances to conceive a child and the odds of a woman to get pregnant.

In what is considered to be the first study on the link between fertility problems and high cholesterol levels in the blood, researchers from the Emory University in Atlanta, National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the University at Buffalo (New York) followed more than 500 couples who have discontinued contraception and were planning to have a child to determine an association between the amount of cholesterol in the blood and time to pregnancy.

The theory is that cholesterol in the blood may have an association with fertility as cholesterol is involved in the production of sex hormones such as the testosterone in men and the estrogen in women.

The researchers found that pregnancy is delayed in couples where only the woman has high cholesterol level. Women who had the highest levels of free cholesterol levels did not get pregnant during the duration of the study. When the woman has normal levels of fat in the blood and the man has high cholesterol level, on the other hand, pregnancy is not significantly delayed. Time to pregnancy is longest for couples where both partners have high cholesterol levels.

"Our results suggest that serum free cholesterol concentrations in both men and women have an effect on TTP, highlighting the importance of cholesterol and lipid homeostasis for male and female fecundity," the researchers reported.

Study author Enrique Schisterman, from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in Maryland said that results of their study show that besides increasing risks for cardiovascular diseases, high cholesterol levels may also contribute to infertility. Schisterman said that their findings suggest that parents who are trying to conceive a child should consider having their cholesterol levels checked to ensure that these are in an acceptable range.

"We've long known that high cholesterol levels increase the risk for heart disease," Schisterman said. "In addition to safeguarding their health, our results suggest that couples wishing to achieve pregnancy would improve their chances by first ensuring that their cholesterol levels are in an acceptable range."