Melanie Brown

Melanie Brown, Male Fertility Nutritionist

I have been a nutritionist for over twenty years, always working in the area of fertility. I am especially interested in male fertility and the effect diet and lifestyle has on all aspects of sperm health.

ABOUT MELANIE

After a long career in the health and beauty industry, I went to university to study nutrition, and I have been practicing since 2002. For eight years, I was the Senior Nutritional Therapist at London’s prestigious fertility and pregnancy Zita West Clinic, designing the nutrition programme for the clinic, and seeing thousands of clients.

I also worked at a private GP practice for five years, which was a huge learning experience, and for a complete change I taught cooking skills to teenagers with learning difficulties for a small charity called Foundations. In 2009 I joined the team at the prestigious retreat company In:Spa, consulting clients in Morocco, Spain and France, and a year later I decided to go out on my own specialising in pre-conception, IVF and pregnancy nutrition, working in Central London.

In 2017 I finished my Master’s degree in Nutritional Medicine, and for my final year project I completed a systematic review and meta-analysis into the effect of male obesity on assisted reproduction, for which I received a distinction.

For five years, I wrote regularly for the Sunday Telegraph Stella Magazine Q&A health page, and more recently for Harper’s Bazaar Online and I have written the chapter on nutrition for the book  Female Infertility: Basic Science and Clinical Practice edited by Bryan Woodward and Jayant Mehta published in 2018.

I am currently co-writing a book on male fertility with Mr Jonathan Ramsay and Dr Anand Patel which will be the most comprehensive book on this subject and include everything I know about how diet and lifestyle improves male infertility. And I am also working on a one-off live Masterclass for people with male factor infertility.

I see my clients both face to face in Central London and on Zoom for both UK and international clients.

CREDENTIALS

  • Bachelor of Science with Honours in Nutritional Therapy from the University of Westminster

  • Master of Science in Nutritional Medicine from the University of Surrey

  • Memberships

  • The British Association of Nutrition & Lifestyle Medicine (BANT)

  • The Council of Complementary and Natural Health Care (CNHC)

  • Associate member of The British Fertility Society (BNF)

  • Associate member of the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM)

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  • Sessions at the European Society for Human Reproduction & Endocrinology (ESHRE)

  • Sessions at the British Fertility Society (BFS)

  • Board of Directors at the IVF Network

  • Collaborations with TestHim, IVF Babble, Andrology Solutions and The Fertility Network.

  • As a bloke the very last thing I wanted to do was see a nutritionist, even though it was ‘my’ problem and boy was I bad tempered when we arrived, my poor wife was very embarrassed. I left the appointment wondering why I had taken so long. I had kept some wine (expensive), coffee (a bit), plenty of sex (result), the ‘egg and sperm salad’ (still eating it), ended up with a natural pregnancy and now have a wonderful baby girl.

    Go and see her, she really is OK!

  • I'm writing to thank you for the great success I've had from following the advice you gave me. We had a consultation in April 2021, when my DNA fragmentation level was about 46% and there was serious doubt about my chances of fathering a child. But thanks to the advice you gave - everything from salads and smoothies to supplements - I got the number down to 29%. And I attach a photo of the result - born in January and is happy, healthy and loud. Thank you so much for your help, without which we wouldn't have him

  • I wanted to say a massive thank you for helping us make our dreams come true. Last Tuesday, we welcomed our baby boy into the world.

    The nutrition information and advice I took from you from our consultation back in late 2021 contributed to a huge improvement in my DNA Fragmentation for our second round of IVF in July 2022. That round we were able to create six embryos, one of which is our son:)

    A huge thank you again, it wouldn’t have been possible without you!