SpainFertility

Determining the impact of erythrocyte supplementation on embryo development in young mice exposed to an oxidizing agent and in aging female mice.

 MedWire News: The negative effect of maternal aging on embryo development and blastocyst formation can be counteracted by supplementation with erythrocytes, Japanese study results indicate.

Believing that the low developmental competence of embryos from aging females may be due to oxidative stress, Rie Fukuhara and colleagues from Hirosaki University School of Medicine cultured IVF embryos from young mice in medium supplemented with the oxidizing agent hypoxanthine/xanthine oxidase in the presence or absence of erythrocytes.

In a second experiment, the team assessed the development of embryos from young and aging female mice in the presence and absence of erythrocytes.

Hypoxanthine/xanthine oxidase significantly inhibited embryo development. In contrast, erythrocyte supplementation increased embryo development in a dose-dependent manner, from zero blastocyst embryos in mice exposed to hypoxanthine/xanthine oxidase alone to 10.1 percent of blastocysts supplemented with the highest dose of erythrocytes.

Developmental competence was significantly lower in embryos from aging females than those from young females. However, erythrocyte supplementation significantly increased the development of embryos to the blastocyst stage, from 51.1 to 77.3 percent.

The team says: “Increasing numbers of women are delaying childbearing until the end of the third and sometimes the fourth decade of life, and therefore there is a strong need for the clinical application of this technique.”

ORGYN.com

Comparing semen characteristics of men with subfertile and fertile parents.

MedWire News: Danish researchers have strengthened the evidence indicating that infertility is partly inherited.

Previously, a few studies reported poor semen quality in men whose mothers had fertility treatment, but it was unclear whether this was due to the parents’ subfertility or the infertility treatment itself.

In the current study, Cecilia Ramlau-Hansen (Aarhus University Hospital) and colleagues compared the semen characteristics of sons of subfertile couples who did not undergo fertility treatment and sons of fertile couples.

The findings, based on 311 men, show that semen volume and sperm count were both significantly inversely associated with the parents’ waiting time to pregnancy.

Average semen volumes of sons of subfertile parents, defined as those who took at least 1 year to conceive, were 19 percent lower than those of sons whose parents conceived within 0-6 months, the team reports.

Sons of subfertile parents also had, on average, a 22 percent lower sperm concentration and a 23 percent lower proportion of morphologically normal sperm than the others.

Ramlau-Hansen et al say the results suggest “a small-to-moderate effect of parental subfecundity on semen quality in sons, comparable with the hypothesis that low fecundity has at least partly heritable causes.”

The Public Health system of Andalucia, Spain, will allow fertility treatments on single mothers. The Junta has confirmed that women will be able to receive this type of treatments regardless of their marital status or sexual orientation.

Maria Jesus Montero, the Public Health system advisor, said that this has not yet been regulated in any other community in spain and that the demand is so high that they are trying to satisfy it. Every year, about five hundred single women request the treatment and, up to now, the ones that were not in a relationship or with a partner could not be assisted. The only ones accepted were women with fertility problems.

Current Spanish law 14/2006 indicates that women over 18 and in working conditions can have free fertility treatments no matter their sexual orientation or if they are in a relationship or not. The problem is that the communities are not obliged to give treatment, based on the fact that several single women that request the treatments are actually fertile and do not have any health issues regarding their conceiving capacities.

Montero said that they will make sure that women who have no fertility issues but are not in a relationship can be assisted in treatments, and that they will guarantee flexibility of health centres, the way they do it in the Reina Sofia clinic in Cordoba, that is currently assisting single women with fertility treatments without conditions. For Montero, it is unfair that women are treated or not depending on which doctor or clinic assists them, when they should equally assist any woman that is over eighteen and in conditions to work.

According to Pilar Hernández Peces, vicepresident of the Madres Solteras por Elección association, this is a big step forward regarding this issue. She said that “we know these treatments are made in several public hospitals, but there is little general knowledge about it and, in the end, is all up to the doctors.” The waiting times are also very long, which discourages women from wanting to have babies.

Via | ElPais

A study made by Australian scientists discovered that vitamins and antioxidant pills can increase men´s fertility. The study showed that fertility was doubled after giving the men a pilled called Menevit. The research involved 60 couples: 17 of them conceived after taking the pill, while only 4 had family after taking placebo.

The pill in question has a combination of vitamin C, E, folic acid, garlic oil, lycopene and zinc. These ingredients protect sperm from being damaged, in most cases due to venereal infections or smoking.

The conductors of the research said that the pill makes men feel better about their role in the fertility process, while their wifes go through IVF. They feel they accompany their partners more in this way, since they will also be taking medication to boost their fertility.

The drug company Bayer is going to sell Menevit to infertile couples.

There are other fertility supplements and pills which also contain an amino acid called l-carnitine, which helps with sperm formation and can improve the quality and maturity of sperm. Men who take this amino acid usually have sperm with better motility (ability to swim). They also produce embryos of better quality as the amino acid either reverses or stops DNA damage from occurring.

Grapeseed extract and other vitamins, such as those mentioned above, are antioxidant so they help prevent free radicals which damage the body (think how an apple goes brown after you bite into it: this is called oxidization - antioxidants prevent this process from happening). They prevent ‘rusting’ of the body’s vital organs and slow down aging. They are great for reversing infertility.

If you want to try Menevit, talk to your doctor about when it will become available and whether you are a suitable candidate to receive treatment. If you are interested in trying other vitamin therapies and antioxidants, these can be bought from health food stores, but it would be best to consult a qualified nutritionalist to see what your body is lacking in and which vitamins would be right for you.