Anti-aging supplement may help fertility

TEL AVIV, Israel, July 3 (UPI) -- The vitamin supplement DHEA, used to stave off aging, may help women trying to have a baby, researchers in Israel said.

Adrian Shulman of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Meir Medical Center found women treated for infertility who took the supplement DHEA were three times more likely to conceive than women being not treated with the supplement.

Shulman said he heard anecdotal evidence from his patients and others in the medical community on the benefits of adding DHEA to fertility treatments so he and colleagues put the old wives' tale to a statistical test.

The study involved a control group of women who received treatment for poor ovulation and another group who received the same treatment and 75 milligrams of DHEA -- 40 days before starting fertility treatments and continuing for up to five months.

The study, published in AYALA, the journal of the Israeli Fertility Association, found women who received the infertility treatment plus DHEA were more likely to conceive, and were also more likely to have a healthy pregnancy and delivery.

"In the DHEA group, there was a 23 percent live birth rate as opposed to a 4 percent rate in the control group," Shulman said in a statement. "More than that, of the pregnancies in the DHEA group, all but one ended in healthy deliveries."