Could Taking Vitamins Help Increase Your Sperm Count?

Choosing to have a child together can be a wonderful experience for you as a couple, but trouble conceiving can cause your relationship wellness, and personal sense of wellbeing, to suffer. However, according to a new study from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Utah, this may not be a problem if you take vitamins in conjunction with your fertility treatments.

Jeff and Lauren Wall, a married couple from Salt Lake City, Utah, are now expecting twins, but getting to this point was not smooth-sailing. The couple had trouble conceiving, and at times had to travel an hour for a four-minute consultation with a fertility specialist. According to Jeff, ‘That was discouraging because that was two hours out of my day without providing any answers. We expected results after several months of trying but the doctors that we saw told us to keep trying and that everything would be OK.’

Lauren added, ‘Sometimes there aren’t answers for why you have trouble.’ So the couple became participants in a fertility study at the University of Utah Health Care. Fortunately, study author Dr. Ahmad O. Hammoud, medical director at the Utah Centre for Reproductive Medicine at the University of Utah Health Care, had a good idea why the couple was having trouble conceiving a child. His research shows that there’s a direct correlation between diet, pollution and male infertility.

‘There are a lot of molecules in the environment that can affect negatively male fertility through damaging the genetics of the sperm,’ explained Dr Hammoud, a doctor of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the University of Utah. ‘Vitamins can have a strong antioxidant effect. They can have a positive effect on rebuilding material for the genetics of the sperm.’ Therefore, he conducted a five-year double-blind, placebo controlled study in which men were required to take high doses of zinc and folic acid while their partners continued other fertility treatments.

The FDA has approved the vitamin cocktail, and Hammoud said the study is safe because his clinic is not handling heavy medications that will have side effects. While the study doesn’t claim to fix couples’ infertility troubles, the Walls’ believe the vitamins were responsible for their success. ‘My sperm count, my testosterone levels were uber-low,’ Jeff said. ‘It was our first shot. We were on the vitamins for 30 days and it was our first try and to have that kind of success is huge.’

Categories: conception, folic acid, zinc

Diet vs. Supplements: Preventing AMD and Blindness

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a common cause of blindness, and so you want to do whatever you can to guard your wellbeing against it. Some wellness experts suggest including minerals such as copper, zinc, or lutein, in your diet to prevent AMD, but do these supplements actually work?

 

According to the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS), which included 3,640 people ages 55 to 80, a combination of antioxidants, zinc, and copper seemed to reduce the risk that people who had mild AMD would go on to more severe AMD. Some of the volunteers did not have AMD at the beginning of the study but others already had mild to severe AMD. Participants were either given a treatment of antioxidants (vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta carotene); zinc and copper; antioxidants plus zinc and copper; or a placebo.

 

However, while the combination of antioxidants, zinc and copper reduced the risk of AMD progression, it didn’t protect people without AMD from getting AMD. Therefore, researchers are currently investigating whether lutein, zeaxanthin, or omega-3 fatty acids slow the progression of the most common type of AMD, called dry AMD. This is taking shape in the form of another large randomized trial called AREDS2, and it is possible that results will be known later this year.

 

Researchers are also looking into the benefits of B vitamin supplements in preventing AMD. One large randomized trial gave 5,205 women either a placebo or a combination of vitamins B6 and B12 and folic acid. The results of the study revealed that, after more than seven years, the women given vitamins had about a 30% lower risk of developing AMD. Yet, while the results of this study are encouraging, they won’t be accepted as valid until they are confirmed by other studies.

 

As it stands, there is reasonable evidence to suggest that if your diet is rich in green leafy vegetables, vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc, and lutein, you may be protected against AMD. However, supplements of these nutrients are not yet proven to be protective and so it is best to get these vitamins and minerals from dietary sources where possible. To find out how, consult your doctor or a dietician.

Categories: Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD), copper, zinc

Reasons You Should Take Vitamin Pills With Caution

Vitamin supplements may seem like harmless nutrients that can’t have any adverse effects on our wellbeing. But, any substance taken excessively is likely to lead to some kind of harm, so how do we know if we’re taking too many vitamin pills?

Medical advice

Some experts say that if we eat a healthy, varied diet we don’t need to take any supplements. But most of us lead busy lives and don’t have the time we wish we did when it comes to organising nutrient-packed meals every day. This means we could rely on sugary snacks for an energy buzz, and fast food to satisfy our hunger pangs when we’re short on time. Taking supplements can complement our food intake and also give us nutrients found in meals that we don’t usually eat. But if we take too many then we could experience some of the following problems, say experts.

Taking too much?

Magnesium helps moderate our nervous system, contributes to strong bones and keeps our immune system healthy, but if we take too much we could end up with diarrhoea, which can dehydrate us and flush other nutrients from our system. Calcium is another mineral that our body needs to create bones and taking an excess amount can lead to constipation, heart issues and kidney stones. Some nutrients our bodies can’t store, which is another reason many of us take supplements. Zinc falls into this category, but like the other minerals it’s possible to have too much. The metal is needed to boost our immune systems, repairs wounds and assist in cell division, but it can also cause abnormal heart rhythms, gastric problems and weak muscles.

How much is too much?

When we buy supplements, labels recommend how much of the vitamin or mineral we should take every day, although we also need to consider the nutrients found in our diets. Our local doctor’s surgeries can provide more details about which nutrients will benefit us more and how much we ought to take to feel fit and healthy.

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Reasons You Should Take Vitamin Pills With Caution

Categories: Magnesium, mineral, Supplements, vitamin supplements, zinc

An Easy Way To Fight The Common Cold

At this time of year the common cold can become a massive burden. Some people are very lucky and never seem to be affected by this nasty bug but for others it’s a perpetually recurring feature of their winters every single year. It’s not a dangerous condition on its own and even at its very worst you’re not going to suffer overly. The issue is how hard it can make the rest of your life. If you have to work while feeling fatigued and generally run down then you’re not going to be working at your best. You’ll be slower and it’ll seem like much more of a challenge than it ever would have before.

The common cold isn’t going to be a condition which is ever effectively cured. Every time doctors work out a way of dealing with one strain, it mutates and the treatment is no longer effective. Over the counter medications deal with the symptoms of a condition as opposed to the condition itself, meaning you can ease the worst of it but not actually cure it.

For a long time the recommendation has been to boost your immune system and specialists recommended doing this through the use of vitamin C and Echinacea. Though vitamin C is great for upping your immune system and preventing a lot of bugs it’s not so good for colds. Recent studies have shown that its effects in this area are minimal or non-existent. So what’s the best way of avoiding a cold this winter?

Zinc has been shown to have a very positive effect on those suffering from colds. It makes it less likely for a patient to contract one in the first place and it also makes the condition much shorter lived in general. Symptoms pass easier and you’re going to be stuck with that cold for a lot less time!

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An Easy Way To Fight The Common Cold

Categories: common cold, vitamin c, zinc