Could Vitamin D increase your fertility by 87%? A new Danish study says yes! stay tuned to learn more.
There's been a lot of interest lately about Vitamin D and fertility.
Let me give you a little background about vitamin D. Vitamin D is
an oil soluble vitamin that has several important functions in the body. It helps
to absorb dietary calcium and phosphorus from the intestines. Vitamin D keeps the
calcium and phosphate levels in the blood normal, thereby promoting bone health.
There are two main ways in which you get vitamin D in your body. Most of
the vitamin D in humans is made in the skin when exposed to sunlight. The amount
of sunlight needed to synthesize adequate amounts of vitamin D varies
depending on the person's age, skin color, sun exposure and underlying medical problems.
The production of vitamin D from the skin decreases with age.
In addition, people who have darker skin need more sun exposure to produce
adequate amounts of vitamin D, especially during the winter months.
Another important source of vitamin D are foods like sardines, salmon, eggs and liver.
However, in humans, less than 20% of vitamin D is obtained from the diet.
In the United States, commercially fortified cow's milk is the
largest source of dietary vitamin D. The big risk is inadequate exposure to the sun.
This is especially a problem in the winter, when you don't go outside as much
and when you do you're generally covered up. How can you tell if your vitamin D
level is low? It's pretty easy actually. A blood test from your doctor will tell
you what your current vitamin D level is. Do people with vitamin D deficiency have
more problems with infertility? Some studies have found that vitamin D
deficiency is more common in fertility problems like polycystic ovary syndrome
and uterine fibroids. Other studies have found that supplementing women with
vitamin D improved the success of treatments ranging from Clomid to IVF.
One of the limitations of these studies is that they involved relatively small
numbers of women. Alright. With that as the background let's
talk about this Danish vitamin D study. It turns out that until 1985, adding
vitamin D to margarine was required in the entire country of Denmark. Then, the
requirement abruptly stopped. Denmark also keeps registries of how many people
are being treated for fertility problems and how many gave birth. Recently,
researchers used that change in vitamin D requirements to investigate the impact
of vitamin D supplementation on women with infertility. They looked at three
groups: Number 1) The vitamin D exposed group - this included over 6000 women
who had their primary infertility diagnosis made between 1980 and 1985
when vitamin D fortification stopped. Number 2) A group of 1400 women
who were diagnosed with infertility within 15 months after fortification stopped
and Number 3) A group of 8,500 women who were diagnosed with infertility
more than 16 months after fortification was stopped. The results
were really interesting. Women in Group 1 (the vitamin D group) had an 87%
higher chance of live birth compared to group 3 (the no vitamin D group). Women in
group 2, (who were diagnosed right after fortification stopped) were 52%
more likely to have a live birth compared to the no supplement group.
One other interesting thing about this study: the benefits of vitamin D
supplementation were just as strong in the dark winter months as in the sunnier
summer months - which is a little strange since you might guess that more people
would benefit in the winter. Our InfertilityTV bottom line: It seems
pretty reasonable if you have infertility to check your vitamin D
levels and get your levels into the normal range if they're low. Even if your
levels are normal, take a prescription prenatal vitamin containing vitamin D.
If you liked this video, remember to LIKE this video and
subscribe to InfertilityTV now - we produce a new video each week - it's like
having a fertility specialist in your phone