Vitamin D deficiency in women affects conceiving through IVF

A new study has suggested that women with lack of Vitamin D were nearly half as likely to conceive through in vitro fertilization (IVF) as compared to women who had sufficient levels of the vitamin.

The study conducted at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed vitamin D levels in women who were referred to the Infertility Unit of the Fondazione Ca' Granda at Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico for IVF during 2012.

Study author, Alessio Paffoni, MSc, of the Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico in Milan, Italy asserted that their work was the largest study to date to examine how vitamin D affected fertility in women who were undergoing IVF and they found that women who had sufficient levels of vitamin D were more likely to produce high-quality embryos and more likely to become pregnant than women who were deficient in vitamin D.

Paffoni added that although randomized clinical trials were needed to confirm the findings, their results certainly suggested that low levels of vitamin D contributed to infertility and since vitamin D supplementation was an inexpensive and simple intervention with few relevant side effects, additional study in this area had the potential to markedly influence the way infertility is treated.

The study is published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM).