A little bit like romance in general, I find that getting pregnant can be one of those things that become more elusive the more you want it. A loving couple can hammer away at each other for months and years to no avail, yet so many children are born into this world on the back of a drunken bathroom encounter where one person moved around too much and the usually-sound structural integrity of latex had a sudden and tragic lapse.

If you're one of the latter group, then click away: this article is not for you and your bizarrely fertile seed. Instead, if you're a hopeful parent out there who's trying to have a baby to the point they're thinking about IVF or adoption, then maybe this article will save you a whole lot of hassle in trying to will into existence your very own bundle of joy.

A study from the Human Nutrition Unit of the Universitat Rovira I Virgil in Spain has run the numbers, looking at men with slow swimmers, and they've concluded that if you're looking to impregnate your significant other, then you probably should be looking at eating more nuts.

Yep, that's right - the "the inclusion of nuts in a regular diet significantly improves the quality and function of human sperm". Can't really argue with that, can you?

To discover this, researchers at the university took 119 healthy men between the ages of 18 and 35, and over 14 weeks, were asked to stick to either a Western-style diet alongside 60 grams a day of mixed almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts, or go about their eating habits as they usually would without nuts.

Before and after this 14-week period, blood and sperm samples were taken from the test subjects (hopefully not at the same time), and the difference in test subjects was immediately obvious: not only did the nut-eaters see an improvement of around 16 percent in their sperm count, but vitality and motility (a sperm cell's swimming ability) also went up by four and six percent, respectively.

Dr. Albert Salas-Huetos is one of the researchers on this study, and while he wasn't exactly saying that eating nuts were a viable alternative to IVF, for example, he was delighted with the outcome of the study's results, saying a healthy lifestyle was vital to bringing new life into the world.

"Based solely on the results of this study. But evidence is accumulating in the literature that healthy lifestyle changes such as following a healthy dietary pattern might help conception -- and of course, nuts are a key component of a Mediterranean healthy diet."

The world is full of old wives' tales about the best way to get pregnant, with many a hopeful mother sticking their legs in the air like a Thanksgiving turkey or eating McDonald's french fries in a desperate attempt to conceive, but if this study's anything to go by, then maybe instead of going crazy trying to have a baby, perhaps people should just go nuts.

A little bit like romance in general, I find that getting pregnant can be one of those things that become more elusive the more you want it. A loving couple can hammer away at each other for months and years to no avail, yet so many children are born into this world on the back of a drunken bathroom encounter where one person moved around too much and the usually-sound structural integrity of latex had a sudden and tragic lapse.

If you're one of the latter group, then click away: this article is not for you and your bizarrely fertile seed. Instead, if you're a hopeful parent out there who's trying to have a baby to the point they're thinking about IVF or adoption, then maybe this article will save you a whole lot of hassle in trying to will into existence your very own bundle of joy.

A study from the Human Nutrition Unit of the Universitat Rovira I Virgil in Spain has run the numbers, looking at men with slow swimmers, and they've concluded that if you're looking to impregnate your significant other, then you probably should be looking at eating more nuts.

Yep, that's right - the "the inclusion of nuts in a regular diet significantly improves the quality and function of human sperm". Can't really argue with that, can you?

To discover this, researchers at the university took 119 healthy men between the ages of 18 and 35, and over 14 weeks, were asked to stick to either a Western-style diet alongside 60 grams a day of mixed almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts, or go about their eating habits as they usually would without nuts.

Before and after this 14-week period, blood and sperm samples were taken from the test subjects (hopefully not at the same time), and the difference in test subjects was immediately obvious: not only did the nut-eaters see an improvement of around 16 percent in their sperm count, but vitality and motility (a sperm cell's swimming ability) also went up by four and six percent, respectively.

Dr. Albert Salas-Huetos is one of the researchers on this study, and while he wasn't exactly saying that eating nuts were a viable alternative to IVF, for example, he was delighted with the outcome of the study's results, saying a healthy lifestyle was vital to bringing new life into the world.

"Based solely on the results of this study. But evidence is accumulating in the literature that healthy lifestyle changes such as following a healthy dietary pattern might help conception -- and of course, nuts are a key component of a Mediterranean healthy diet."

The world is full of old wives' tales about the best way to get pregnant, with many a hopeful mother sticking their legs in the air like a Thanksgiving turkey or eating McDonald's french fries in a desperate attempt to conceive, but if this study's anything to go by, then maybe instead of going crazy trying to have a baby, perhaps people should just go nuts.