Women may want to consider these supplements and vitamins:
- Iron (10-20 mg/day): Anemia can lead to infertility. Women who bleed profusely may be anemic, those who rarely bleed may in fact be either anemic or too high in iron.
- Vitamin C (500-1500 rag/day): This powerful anti-oxidant helps to protect cells and strengthen the immune system.
- Vitamin E (400-800 i.u, per day): Vitamin E may increase egg quality. In a preliminary human trial, infertile couples given vitamin E (200 IU per day for the female and 100 IU per day for the male) showed a significant increase in fertility.
- PABA (para-aminobenzoic acid) (400 mg/day): Some women have become pregnant with PABA. PABA is believed to increase the ability of oestrogen to facilitate fertility.
- Co-enzyme-Q10 (30-100 mg/day): May improve egg quality.
- Folate, also known as fofic acid (400-800 mcg/day): Folic acid may prevent neural tube defects and other birth defects. It also protects your heart.
- L-Arginine (16 g/day): Was shown to increase fertility in women who had previously failed in-vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures.
- Essential fatty acids (EFA) (1-7 grams per day) can help the health of your reproductive system, insulin levels, heart and brain. EFA reduce inflammation throughout the body (a possible cause of PCOS and other types of infertility) and promote overall health. The best source is purified fish oil (don't take cod liver oil as it is too high in vitamins A & D and may prove toxic).
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| Vitamins For Infertility |
Men may wish to consider these supplements:
- Vitamin C (500-1500 mg/day) helps to combat the pollution we are surrounded with. Pollution, particularly agricultural chemicals have been shown to cause much lower sperm counts. Vitamin C has been shown to reduce DNA damage in sperm by 91%. It is also shown to reduce agglutination and abnormalities. Vitamin C (1000mg) per day raised sperm counts by 140% in the first week in one study and 200 mg increased sperm counts by 112% in the first week. After 60 days the 200 mg group had caught up with the 1000mg group All of these men had impregnated their wives by the end of the study.
- Vitamin E (400-800 i.u. per day): Even a mild zinc deficiency can cause drastically lower sperm counts. Zinc may also improve sexual function. In one study, thirty-seven men with more than five years of infertility and whose sperm counts were less than 25 million/ml took 60 mg of zinc daily for forty-five to fifty days. For the twenty-two patients with initially low testosterone levels showed an increase in testosterone and mean sperm count increased significantly, from 8 to 20 million/ml. Nine of the twenty- two wives became pregnant during the study. For the fifteen men with normal testosterone levels, sperm count increased slightly but there was no change in testosterone level and no pregnancies occurred. If you take zinc for longer than a few weeks you should add 1-3 mg of copper to prevent a copper deficiency.
- Vitamin B-12 (10-100 mcg/day) and a B-Complex supplement can help balance testosterone and LH/FSH secretions. Lack of B-vitamins is very common in people who eat mostly refined and processed foods as well as who smoke. Twenty-seven percent of men in one study with sperm counts under 20 million/ml took 1,000 mcg of vitamin B-12 per day. As a result, their total sperm count increased in excess of 100 million/ml.
- Selenium (100-200 mcg/day): Selenium deficiency causes fragile sperm with easily broken tails. Semen is high in selenium so it must be replenished regularly. Selenium is toxic in large doses so don't take more than 200 mcg day. One double-blind trial found that sperm counts doubled in previously infertile men after supplementation with selenium.
- Co-enzyme-Q10 (30-100 mg/day) increases sperm counts. Also an anti-oxidant.
- L-Carnitine (up to 3 grams per day): An Italian study found that 2 grams a day of carnitine for three months dramatically improved sperm counts and mobility.
- A good multi-vitamin including vitamin A. It is not a good idea to take vitamin A separately as it is very easy to overdose on this vitamin. A multivitamin will not have enough of the other supplements, but it is a good starting place to make sure you are not missing anything. Vitamin A helps improve sperm production.
- Essential fatty acids (EFA) are even more important for men than for women. Eat lots of coldwater fish and ground flax seed or supplement with a combination of between 1-7 grams of fish oil and flax oil capsules. Fish oil and flax oil contain different EFA so you will need to add substantial amounts of both to your diet. EFA are important for lowering your risk of diabetes and heart disease, improving overall health and improving sperm count. Be careful about taking too much if you are on blood thinners. Be sure to choose distilled fish oil because oils such as cod liver oil contain toxic levels of vitamin A.
- L-Arginine (2-4 g): Arginine has shown very promising results in numerous studies on both sperm counts and motility. It is best used when everything else has failed.
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| Vitamins For Infertility |
To find out more, you can check out Vitamins For Infertility.
