From a naturopathic and Functional Medicine perspective we would view a couple looking for help with fertility in a similar way to how we would view other health issues; we look at the WHOLE person, we look for underlying CAUSES and not just the symptoms. Symptoms are an expression of the body trying to do something to correct an underlying problem. In a strange way the symptom is there on purpose, it’s the way the body has chosen to compensate for an internal problem. Functional Medicine looks deep into finding these underlying problems to unravel them and create better health.

To give you a quick idea of how fertility can be helped in this functional naturopathic way, we will look at a few common areas that can be out of balance and therefore supported back into healthy state for a better chance at healthy conception. Let us also say, all these things apply to men just as much as women! We will explain why.

Stress

This is huge. Modern day living is more stressful. The body views stress in one way, as a threat to life! Sounds rather extreme but it goes into fight or flight mode to save our lives. It doesn’t know that late late nights, late trains, bad days, excessive screen time, traffic jams etc are not life threatening. Our bodies switch on the stress response and the problem with that is that the stress response switches the hormones OFF. It actually steals the building blocks of hormones to feed the stress chemicals as saving your life has a higher priority than the hormones.

You may have stress in your life that you cannot change but nutrition and supplements can support this and give you the building blocks to support both the stress and your hormones.

This diagram shows that cholesterol feeds cortisol, the stress hormone, and the male and female fertility hormones too. When you are stressed it will feed to cortisol at the expensive of the reproductive hormones. How can you fix this? Simple, get more sleep, exercise, relaxation and minimise the stress in your life!

Eat The Good Fats

It seems ideal to follow that last statement by saying that healthy fats are vital for fertility. Did you notice that your reproductive hormones are made from cholesterol? Yes, cholesterol is amazingly important in our body for many, many things. No low fat diets then, good fats to seriously come to the rescue. We can help incorporate more of these in your diet!

Vitamins And Minerals

Vitamins and minerals are the things that trigger the body to turn one thing into another. For instance, in the example above they will be used to help turn cholesterol into oestrogen. Another example is selenium which is needed to turn a thyroid hormone from an inactive into the active form. Nutritional supplements work on this basis that they give you extra selenium to help this process work and therefore potentially help correct fertility problems. Food choices are critical and work in the same way! Brazil nuts have good selenium content so 5 Brazil nuts per day may help the thyroid hormones convert better. Again, we can help you put a food plan into action.

Foods

Throughout this booklet some foods will be mentioned to help your fertility. Many help balance hormones, some ease the stress response, others help detoxification. Of course there are foods and lifestyle habits that do the opposite and would need to be reduced. We will help you with all this and provide a food plan to maximise your health.

Toxicity

Toxins are absolutely flooding the modern world so much so, that we cannot avoid them we can only minimise them. Fortunately our bodies are amazing at detoxifying but we just have to help it by adding in nutrients that are supportive and minimising the toxins we put in. For example, fibre drags toxins out of the gut. The way toxins can inhibit fertility is that they block the biochemical reactions like the ones spoken about already. As an example some toxins may block the conversion or the thyroid hormone into the active one, or block the helpful oestrogen or progesterones from being produced.

Many toxins mimic oestrogen and the effect of oestrogen in the body, but don’t actually do what oestrogen does. Plastics from lots of common sources are a big offender. BPA plastic bottles and lined in tinned foods, pre-packaged foods in grocery stores and take-aways and even the ink that rubs off on receipts! What can you do? Start by switching to glass containers whenever possible.

Thyroid

The thyroid gland controls our metabolism and the signs and symptoms of thyroid issues and other hormone imbalances are extensive!
Every single cell in our body has a receptor for thyroid hormone (and Vitamin D), no other known chemicals can boast this. It gives you an idea of how important these hormones are. It is well known that a sluggish thyroid affects fertility. Yet another piece to the puzzle to be looked into.

Gut

Even the gut plays a role in hormones and fertility. Along with breaking down food and absorbing it for nutrients the gut hosts billions of good and bad bacteria. Bad bacteria are known to be able to re-circulate “bad” oestrogen hormones causing issues. Also much of the thyroid hormone is actually converted into its active form in the gut. Amazingly, gut and digestive issues like IBS can have a bearing on fertility. Also many of the toxins in the body are processed in the liver and then dumped into the gut to be excreted in faeces. If you have constipation, these toxins can be re-absorbed back not our body. Not good! There are many ways to support the gut with supplements and food. Adding fibre from fruit and vegetable sources are an excellent way to increase your fibre intake and we can help you do this.

Hormones

Hormones are probably the first thing that comes to mind with fertility issues. You can see that there are many other reasons and organs systems that link back into hormones and give a wide variety of ways to help balance them, increase them or even decrease them too. This is also very common in men as well. Hormonal imbalances in men can result in lower testosterone which in turn results in lower sperm count.

Osteopathy

As we mentioned, we want to look at your body as a whole which includes your diet, lifestyle and stress factors. What hasn’t been mentioned are physical factors that contribute to fertility problems. Did you know that all of our internal organs have a nerve supply from the spine? Or that this nerve supply is influences the blood circulation to the organs too? This means that osteopathy treatments reset your spine, especially around the lower back and pelvis influencing your internal organs such as the ovaries and uterus.

Acupuncture

Coming soon…

Why turn to Functional Medicine?

Functional Medicine & Naturopathy look at the underlying causes of infertility and helps to correct them, improving your overall health and therefore enhancing fertility. Christian Bates uses the Avatar Advanced Nutritional Scan to help pin-point issues and then target these with the correct nutritional supplements and food plans. For more information on the Avatar click here.