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infertility

Infertility in Women: Can a Simple Change Lead to Success?

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infertility in women and vitamin D
Photo courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/geishabot/

As a father, I can tell you that, despite the days I want to kill them, having children was a very important decision my life.   But this isn’t always an option when infertility in women and men is an issue.

Fertility problems can create stress and disappointment in a relationship and can lead to sexual problems, anxiety and divorce.  Heartbreak on top of heartbreak.

I have certainly covered the topic of infertility (both infertility in women AND in men) many times in the past, always looking at it from a natural standpoint (these prior blog posts can be read by clicking here).  “Fertility specialists” have an agenda and really don’t seem to care why you can’t get pregnant.  They are going to do what they do and to heck with what your underlying problem might be.  They are going to used Clomid first and IVF second, moving on to more expensive procedures if that fails.

The expression, “when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail,” fits here.  Few “fertility specialists” will have the important discussion with you on thyroid function, achieving an optimal weight, chemical exposures (BPA, phthaltes, flame retardants, etc…), exercise, pulling back from being on a diabetic pathway, exercise and stress management.  All of these are very real factors in a successful pregnancy, but they will require a sincere commitment from you and your partner (YES–both partners need to get on board).

Some of these changes, like managing stress, may involve a complete overhaul of the way you view life.  It’s a major factor in infertility and then feeds back into the problem when stress levels rise from the fertility issue itself.  This is probably one of the reasons why there are always stories about couples who adopt a child and then get pregnant shortly afterwards.  In these cases stress was probably the major player.

While this sounds overwhelming and “not important” in getting pregnant when you could just run down to the nearest “fertility specialist” for a prescription, the stakes are far higher than most couples realize.  If your stress levels are high enough to affect your ability to get pregnant, if you do get pregnant (regardless of how), your stress levels are absolutely going to pre-program your little one for a lifetime of stress-related issues.  THIS is what is at stake.

Of course, some of the changes do not require life-altering approaches.  A simple, good quality prenatal is one of them.  Do NOT do any of the pharmaceutical / prescription ones.  They are all junk and I have yet to see one that is worth more money than a Centrum from Walmart.  A good quality prenatal is going to cost you at least $20 per month and will not be covered by your insurance.

Another simple approach to helping infertility in women is making sure you are getting enough vitamin D.  Yup.  The simple, seems-to-help-with-everything vitamin D.  Same stuff.  Usually not more than $20 per year for the high quality stuff we offer our patients here in the office.  But just how much can it help?

This particular study looked at just this question.  In it, researchers looked at a group of 335 women undergoing IVF treatment to see how much vitamin D levels had an impact on a successful outcome.  The cutoff was 20 ng/ml as deficient.  Here’s what they found:

  • 20% of the women with low vitamin D got pregnant while a much higher 31% achieved pregnancy with higher vitamin D levels.
  • Overall, women with vitamin D levels above 20 ng/mL were 215% more likely to become pregnant.
  • Even better, the women who had higher vitamin D levels (30 ng/mL) had the highest chances of pregnancy.

These are pretty good odds for just a simple, safe and inexpensive intervention.  Keep in mind that most vitamin D experts (myself included) still consider 30 ng/dl too low and that more optimal levels should be closer to 60-100 ng/dl.  So how much better would pregnancy rates be if we looked at the highest levels?

It is also important to note that this was not an intervention trial.  These women were not given vitamin D to see if it could improve pregnancy success, but clearly there is an association between vitamin D levels and fertility.  It’s a strong enough argument for me to recommend at least 2,000-4,000 IU of vitamin D daily to couples (yes–both partners!) who are considering getting pregnant.

 

Planning on Having a Baby? 3 Important Things You Need to Do First

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Diet important for fertility
Photo courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/seandreilinger/

Having a child can be one of the most rewarding experiences in your life. But to go into pregnancy blindly can lead to a lifetime of problems for your baby.

This may sound a little drastic and maybe even a little far-fetched.  Just stay away from drugs, don’t drink alcohol and stay away from nuclear reactors.  Pretty simple.

Ok…so maybe decisions during pregnancy can play a role in your unborn child’s health and well-being.  Maybe you’ll try to eat some more veggies this month and maybe cut back on the fast-food trips.  That’s got to be worth a few IQ points in college.
[Read more…] about Planning on Having a Baby? 3 Important Things You Need to Do First

Dangers of Fertility Treatment- 2 Scary Facts for the Child

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I can understand the incredible desire to start a family and the frustration associated with infertility.

For this reason, I do truly believe that fertility specialists and fertility treatments have a place in society.  However, as I have written about before, these “specialists” do nothing more than force fertility on a woman’s body that is screaming that it is not ready for such an important event like pregnancy.

The vast majority of cases of infertility are lifestyle in nature.  Polycystic ovarian syndrome, or PCOS, accounts for about 75% of anovulatory infertility in women.  PCOS is, in almost every single case, a symptom of prediabetes.  Prediabetes is a lifestyle choice and I have covered the relationship between the choices we make and prediabetes in literally hundreds of previous article.  If you’re really devoted to make changes, you can begin to read them by clicking here.

Another big contributor to infertility includes environmental chemicals like BPA in plastic water bottles and phthalates in vinyls and plastics. Thyroid function also plays a role (which, ironically, is also heavily affected by environmental chemical exposure).

And never forget that it’s not always the woman’s fault.  There are plenty of situations where male infertility if the critical factor.

Overall, though, this means that, in couples who are experiencing infertility, the answer lies with lifestyle.  This means leading an anti-diabetic lifestyle and maintaining an ideal body weight.  All of this should be explained to you by your fertility specialist, but I find that it rarely is.  Lifestyle is pushed to the back row and treatments like Clomid and metformin get the spotlight.  If these are not effective, more advanced forms of fertility treatment like in-vitro fertilization are used.

But, regardless of the tools available, lifestyle changes are NOT OPTIONAL.  If a couple (notice I said couple and not just “woman”) are unwilling to make whatever lifestyle changes are necessary to become pregnant, then I would strongly suggest that they are not ready to become parents at this point in their lives.  This may sound harsh, but consider this–children born to couples using assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are at greater risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

If a couple is not willing to make the needed changes on the front end for the pregnancy, this means they are not willing to make the same sacrifices for the child.  Not cool.  Just to clarify, I am not talking about that small subset of women who truly cannot become pregnant despite an anti-diabetic lifestyle (and I’ve had one or two in my practice lifetime).

Just in case you think I’m being too dramatic about the whole thing, I present this particular article.  While it is a mouse study looking at the long-term effects of assisted reproductive technology on the baby growing into an adult, previous research on vascular dysfunction in humans born to ART make me believe the results should translate well into humans.  Here’s what they found:

  1. The blood vessels from the ART mice had definite dysfunction (endothelial dysfunction, arterial hypertension, reduced nitric oxide production).
  2. Worse, ART mice fed a high fat diet had a 25% shorter lifespan.

Yes–when ART was used, the mice died 25% sooner.  This is a serious issue.  And many may step back and think that, because the mice were fed a high fat diet it is not the reality of what a human child would experience in his or her life, it is not relevant.  I disagree.  To me, if a couple never learned and adopted the right lifestyle for their genetics (which is likely if they had to resort to ART), they did not learn what they needed to learn to raise a healthy child.  They will pass on this not-matched-for-genetics lifestyle to the child as he or she grows and creates his or her own lifestyle for the future.

The bottom line is that, for any couple having a hard time conceiving, before you visit a “fertility specialist” to help, you should visit someone knowledgeable in teaching you how to live an anti-diabetic lifestyle.  Your future kids will thank you.

The Hip Bone is Connected to the…Testis??????

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Ok.  I KNOW that the body is wildly interconnected.  But some connections are too incredible to be believed at first glance.

I recently wrote a blog article about how weight gain is not one of the low T symptoms, but rather, weight gain leads to lower testosterone levels.  So you know that hormone levels are directly related to lifestyle choices.  Certainly the reverse can be true, where off-kilter hormone levels can create health problems.  But more often, poor lifestyle choices throw off the balance of your hormones.

When it comes to your bones, as little as 15 years ago the view of what your bones do was limited to an attachment site for muscles so you can move.  Pretty inert.  They basically just sit there doing nothing, until, of course, they fracture and create a problem and pain.

Then all hell broke loose.

We now have a drastically different view of bone.  It is a highly active tissue at the heart of some very important physiological processes.  Here’s what I’ve written about in the past:

  1. Serotonin from the gut (the body’s main source of this neurotransmitter) will actually stop bone cells called osteoblasts from building more bone.
  2. Osteoblasts secrete a hormone called osteocalcin.  More osteoblasts = more bone = more osteocalcin released.
  3. Osteocalcin has an effect on abdominal fat and lowers your risk of diabetes.

This is already a pretty impressive list.  And it’s about to get a little bit bigger.

In this particular study (which was a mouse study, so keep this in mind), researchers found that osteocalcin had an effect on the Leydig cells in the testis.  These cells produce testosterone.

Good bone health drives testosterone levels.  Go back in time to 1995 and mention this to any researcher looking into bone and they would think you’re crazy.  Heck–when I mention this to people today, they still think I’m crazy.

But look at what this means.  We already know that healthy behaviors, as well as the opposite behaviors, affect testosterone levels as was described in a recent blog article that can be read by clicking here.

But just how deep this link is what shocks me.  It’s not a matter of getting the right nutrients, vitamins and minerals so you can make testosterone.  Rather, a healthy lifestyle may produce optimal testosterone levels through the gut-bone-testis axis.

Further, this means that merely taking natural hormone treatments will do absolutely NOTHING to the problem at hand.  In other words, the poor bone health seems to drive low T levels, but the reverse is not true–giving testosterone will not miraculously improve bone health.

Which further reinforces the fact that, if you have symptoms of low T, lifestyle is your ONLY answer.  Supplementation  / replacement is a train wreck waiting to happen.

Lycopene Helps Fight Infertility in Men – (04-16-01)

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Lycopene Helps Fight Infertility in Men

Given that lycopene (a substance found in many red fruits and veggies such as tomatoes and watermelon) has been shown to lower risk of prostate cancer, it is not surprising that this substance also has an effect on other male reproductive issues. Combine lycopene with zinc and therapies designed to restore hormone levels and many cases of infertility may be resolved.

(article) Lycopene, an antioxidant found in watermelon, grapes, tomatoes and some shellfish, seems to treat infertility in men, studies conducted at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi show. AIIMS researchers Dr. Rajeev Kumar and Dr. N. P. Gupta had 30 infertile male patients, ages 23 to 45, take 2 mg oral lycopene twice daily for 3 months. “Lycopene is one of the 650 carotenoids found in high concentrations in male testes and lower levels of lycopene are found in infertile males,” Dr. Gupta told Reuters Health. The duration of infertility in these men had ranged from 1.2 to 20 years, according to the researchers. In all cases, infertility was idiopathic. Twenty-seven patients had oligospermia, 26 had impaired sperm motility and 22 had abnormal sperm morphology. All three parameters were found in 14 patients, another 14 had two abnormal parameters and the remaining two patients had a single abnormality. After lycopene had been administered for 3 months, sperm concentration improved in 67% of the 30 patients. Maximum improvement was noted in patients with baseline sperm concentrations greater than 5 million/mL. Overall, 73% patients showed improved sperm motility and 63% showed improvement in sperm morphology. “We found that improvement in sperm concentration and motility was statistically significant,” Dr. Gupta said in the interview with Reuters Health. There were six pregnancies after the trial, he added. “Oral lycopene therapy does seem to have a positive role in the management of infertility of unknown causes,” Dr. Gupta concluded. “However, larger randomized controlled trials are essential before definitive therapeutic guidelines can be laid down.”

INFERTILITY TREATMENT AND CELIAC DISEASE- (12-22-03)

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Coeliac disease and subfertility: association is often neglected

Infertility treatment in today’s society usually consists of fertility drugs and the birth control pill. These methods are designed to override normal human physiology and force the body to perform something it is not ready to perform. A more logical approach would be to restore normal physiology and allow the body to perform as it was meant to. This would include managing insulin resistance, use of progesterone cream, lowering estrogen exposure (endogenous and exogenous) and, in the case of this study, evaluating for coelic disease (allergy to the gluten protein found in several grains, most notably wheat).

bmj.com Sanders 327 (7425): 1226-e.

Read entire article here

Problems Getting Pregnant? Cure Infertility Naturally

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Infertility, or problems getting pregnant, is becoming a greater burden for couples today. Luckily, with the right tips you can cure infertility naturally.

Sometimes, this is obvious, like adopting an anti-diabetic lifestyle (prediabetes is a MAJOR cause of infertility), reducing stress and exercising consistently. Sometimes, the problem is not so obvious.

Ninety-seven (yes…pretty much all of us) of Americans have a chemical in their bloodstream that makes pregnancy difficult.  I think that most of us live in a comfortable oblivion when it comes to just how many chemicals we are exposed to on a daily basis and how much effect they have on our overall health and risk of chronic disease.  But if we just ignore them, they won’t bother us, right??

Wrong.

PBDEs are chemicals used in flame retardants (furniture, clothing, dog beds, mattresses, etc…). As mentioned, the CDC states that they are present in the blood of 97% of Americans.

In this particular study, researchers tested the levels of certain PBDE’s in the blood of a group of pregnant women and asked them how long it took them to become pregnant.

Overall, the higher the levels in the blood stream of PBDEs, the longer it took for these women to get pregnant.  At the high end, those women with the higher levels in their bloodstream took 40-50% longer to get pregnant.

This further reinforces the idea that infertility is a very systemic process, and forcing a woman’s body into pregnancy through fertility “experts” with medication can be a dangerous thing.

In this particular case, if PBDEs were higher, it means that the developing baby will ALSO be exposed to higher levels.

Bottom line?  Evaluate constantly how many chemicals you and your children are exposed to and do your best to lower your exposure in any way possible.

So what changes did you or are you going to make to ensure that you had or have a healthy pregnancy?

WEAR THIS TO WORK AND YOUR SPERM WILL DIE

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So maybe the title is a little dramatic.  But problems with infertility do not rely solely on the woman.  Viewing infertility from a male standpoint the most important factor to consider is environmental toxicity.  Believe it or not, there are clothes you may wear to work everyday that will affect sperm quality and count.

The EPA registers some 83,000 chemicals for use in the US, and the  vast majority of these have never been scrutinized for their health effects.  However, there are some classes that have been evaluated more fully, and the picture is rarely a positive one.  Frequently on the list of common household exposures are the flame retardants.  They are in everything these days, from your mattress to your clothing to your furniture and your dog’s bedding.  One would think we were under constant pressure to undergo spontaneous combustion.

Flame retardants have shown clear effects on the thyroid gland and cancer risk.  This particular study looked at the presence of flame retardants in the house dust of men attending a fertility clinic.  Researchers looked at the presence of two compounds, tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TDCPP) and triphenyl phosphate (TPP), and found that they were in 96% and 98% of the men.  As the levels of these compounds in house dust increased, sperm quality decreased.

While one would think that dusting may help the issue, it is not likely to be the case.  Researchers merely looked at dust rather than the blood levels in these patients.  Exposure to these compounds likely comes from multiple sources, including those mentioned above.  The best option is to reduce your overall exposure to these compounds by replacing old cushions, buying clothing without flame retardants and not sleeping on a flame retardant mattress.

In addition to the flame retardants, chemicals like BPA have also show to affect hormone levels in men that could lead to reduced sperm quality and quantity.  Quitting smoking and dietary quality will also have a positive effect on fertility levels in men, with compounds like zinc and lycopene (the red pigment found in tomatoes) having been shown to help.

The bottom line is that, for those men who are a part of an infertile couple, it is not merely your job to just sit patiently at the “infertility” clinic appointment for your partner.  You have to take an active role in improving your health as well.