Hi, I am Dr Randy Morris. As a physician who has dedicated his life to helping couples to conceive
and deliver babies, I am always looking for new approaches to treat infertility.
Fallopian tube blockage is a common cause for infertility. Today, on InfertilityTV, I am going
to explore the use of the supplement serrapeptase for unblocking fallopian tubes, stay tuned.
Most of the time fallopian tube blockage has no symptoms. Blockage is usually diagnosed
by hysterosalpingogram which is an x-ray performed while squirting fluid through the
uterus and tubes with a catheter. Fallopian tubes can become blocked due to infections
(especially sexually transmitted infections such as chlamydia or gonorrhea), endometriosis
or even surgery. IVF is a great treatment to become pregnant if you have blocked tubes but,
if you don’t have insurance that covers fertility problems, it is expensive. Surgery
is sometimes an option but is very invasive and doesn’t always work. In many cases,
I have been able to open blocked fallopian tubes using catheters and wires but not everybody can
get to my fertility center in the USA to have this highly effective treatment. Wouldn’t it be great
if there was a pill you could take to open blocked tubes? Serrapeptase is sold as a capsule or tablet
What is serrapeptase? Serrapeptase was first isolated in the 1960s from a rather disgusting
place. It was being produced from a species of bacteria found in the
intestines of caterpillars. The bacteria is called Serratia marcescens. In fact,
serrapeptase was originally known as serratia peptase or serratia peptidase.
Serrapeptase is an enzyme which speeds up the breakdown of certain types of proteins.
One of the hoped for uses of serrapeptase was to help break down blood clots inside blood vessels.
This could be helpful for people with coronary heart disease. Takeda, a well respected
pharmaceutical company based in Japan, sold it for several years. Ultimately, they stopped selling it
and recalled it about 10 years ago when studies found that it did not have any benefit.
After that, some smaller companies started pushing the use of serrapeptase for other indications.
Blood vessels can have blockages and fallopian tubes can have blockages, so these companies
started advertising serrapeptase as a treatment for blocked fallopian tubes. Let’s look at
the evidence. I couldn’t remember seeing any infertility studies being done with serrapeptase,
so I searched for any studies through the National Library of Medicine database.
No studies on this topic were found. Next, I looked at Clinical Trials.gov which lists many
currently ongoing studies. Nothing. The Cochrane database. Nothing. Finally, I searched Google.
All I could find were ads from vendors trying to sell serrapeptase with “claims” of success
and posts on social media or infertility support groups, but no actual clinical studies.
When we look at how serrapeptase is supposed to work, it really doesn’t make any sense that it
would be able to open fallopian tubes. When you digest serrapeptase, if it does not get
destroyed completely in the stomach, it must be absorbed from the intestines into the blood.
Since it circulates in the blood, you could at least make some argument that
maybe it could act on blockages within a blood vessel but fallopian tube blockages
are not inside blood vessels they are inside the tubes. The serrapeptase would have to exit
the blood vessels in the fallopian tubes, concentrate itself in the tube and somehow
magically break down the blockage in the lumen of the tube without damaging the tube itself.
In fact, every review I found which analyzed studies done on serrapeptase for other
indications, found that the “existing scientific evidence for serrapeptase
is insufficient to support its use as a health supplement”
What can I say? There is absolutely no evidence that serrapeptidase works
to unblock fallopian tubes. There is no reason to even suspect that serrapeptase
could open fallopian tubes. Is there any harm to trying? In this case, I would say, yes.
First is the cost. This stuff is not cheap. The average cost was between 25 and 60 dollars per
bottle. One post on Facebook said that women would need to take 6 months or longer to work.
Second, adverse reactions. With short term use, most people taking serrapeptase
were not severely harmed. However, serrapeptase has been found to cause a
number of serious medical problems in some people such as eosinophilic pneumonitis,
bullous pemphigoid, bleeding, and a severe drug reaction known as Stevens-Johnson syndrome.
Most of the studies looked at serrapeptase use for only a few weeks.
The effects from longer term use are unknown.
Our Infertility Bottom line for serrapeptase. There is no proven
benefit and there are potential risks. Do not take serrapeptase to try to open fallopian tubes.
InfertilityTV is your most trusted source for accurate information on
infertility and miscarriage. If you are not a subscriber yet, hit the subscribe button
right now. A new episode is released every week. Dont miss any episodes. You
can also check us out on our website ivf1.com where you can become a patient