You may have heard about the following study that discussed the possibility of herbs and other complimentary therapies as having a negative impact on IVF outcomes. So as you can imagine, I was very interested in this study because we have certainly found this not to be the case.
Here is the study results:
Danish "Researchers found women who used complementary and alternative therapies (CATs) while undergoing fertility treatment were 30 per cent less likely to become pregnant than those who did not."
But here's the catch. This study took didn't look at one particular complimentary therapy, or even a specific herb or group of herbs. Here's what they considered:
"Dr Boivin recruited 818 women having IVF treatment at five Danish fertility clinics, 261 of whom were CAT (complimentary/Alternative therapy) users and 557 who were not.
Among users, 55 per cent went to reflexologists, half took herbal medicines, 19 per cent had acupuncture and seven per cent used homeopathy." (the fact that this adds up to more than 100% tells me that some of the patients were using multiple therapies)
I find this interesting because this study just lumped all of these together instead of looking at each treatment individually. This would be like taking patients who have used prescription synthetic drugs, massage therapy, and over the counter synthetic medications and lumping them all together disregarding dosages or treatment plans or duration and saying that they are all ineffective. Therefore in my opinion it was a poorly constructed review and doesn't reflect the truth of which of these therapies may be effective or not.
Then Dr. Bovin went on to say, ""It could also be that if someone is mixing and matching conventional and complimentary medicine that they are less committed and accurate in complying with the self injections and precise timings involved in IVF." I am not sure how or why she would make this statement. I find in my work with thousands of couples going through IVF, they NEVER miss their injections. To say that this group may be less consistent with their IVF protocol and that this is somehow related to their use of CAM therapies in my opinion, is inappropriate and is a big leap, especially without any direct proof from the patients themselves.
Why do so many look for the cause of less than optimal "success rates" in what the patients are doing or not doing. Could it be that some IVF drugs or protocols are just not effective for some patients. Where are the studies to ascertain which protocol is the best for a certain presentation. In this study I am sure that all of these patients didn't follow the same IVF protocol either because the results were from 3 different IVF clinics. With so many variables, how can they really know what effected the outcome?
One thing Dr Bovin did admit was " the study may simply have shown that those resorting to using such therapies (CAM therapies) had been having seeking medical help for fertility problems for longer and had worse prognosis." There is also no indication of how long the CAM group was having their complimentary therapy.
If physicans are serious about finding out if complimentary medicines are effecting IVF results, its time that they follow their own protocols of how studies are done instead of lumping together programs for several hundred people and several hundred different treatments and protocol. Its time they get consistent and measure outcomes from one therapy administered by one or two practioners so the results can be measure and specific aspects of a person's situation be taken into consideration.
This would be the responsible way to handle the situation instead of publishing this information to scare people away from using natural remedies that have been around for 1000's of years that actually may be significantly improving their own patients situations.
If anyone knows a group of doctors that would be willing to work with us and create a reputable analysis of results with herbs, supplements and IVF, email me at info@sharkeyshealingcentre.com.au
