Just found this info on the net.
Melatonin could improve women's IVF success - Important Research
Yes, Melatonin can help fertility! There has been research done and published this year. Melatonin helps improve egg quality. The study done in Japan showed that the fertilisation rate of the women taking taking Melatonin was 50%! And then of the embryos that were transplanted 19% of them grew into successful pregnancies. So this really boosted the success rate of IVF. Women wanting to get pregnant without IVF (Naturally) can take this supplement too. My doctor, here in Japan, has given me 3mg to take 5 minutes before I go to bed, daily. He suggests to rest 2 nights per month towards when your period might be due, at the end of the month. This is to allow your body to produce its own melatonin and not to rely totally on the melatonin. The Melatonin is an anti-oxidant which means it enhances our immune system, has anti-inflammatory properties and is said to have anti-carcinogenic properties (kills cancer cells). The anti-oxidative effect on our eggs helps to make nice, healthy strong eggs that have a higher chance of becoming fertilised.
If you are trying to get pregnant and are in your late 30's or into your 40's then you might want to take Melatonin to enhance your chances of becoming pregnant. See below for the recent article about the Melatonin/Fertility study in Japan.
Melatonin could improve women's IVF success
20 September 2010
By Harriet Vickers
Appeared in BioNews 576
Women with poor egg (or oocyte) quality could double their chance of becoming pregnant through IVF if given melatonin, researchers have found. The work was presented at the World Congress of Fertility and Sterility in Munich last week.
'Despite great advances in assisted reproductive technology, poor oocyte quality remains a serious problem for female infertility', said Professor Hiroshi Tamura from the Yamaguchi University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan, who led the research. 'So far no practical and effective treatment for improving oocyte quality has been established'.
High levels of oxidising agents - a type of chemical compound - in the follicular fluids surrounding the egg indicate if a woman has low quality oocytes. These can 'stress' and damage the oocyte. The team took one of these agents known as 8-OHdG and measured its levels in follicular fluid samples. Levels of melatonin, which is known to have anti-oxidising effects, were also measured.
The team found that, as melatonin concentration in the follicular fluids naturally increased, the level of 8-OHdG decreased, leading them to believe melatonin was linked to the reduction of the oxidising agents. They confirmed this finding in mice, and discovered that adding melatonin seemed to reduce the damage to the egg caused by the agents.
Next, the group set up a trial with women coming for IVF treatment at the Yamaguchi University Graduate School of Medicine to see if these findings could have real-world effects on IVF. Women who had failed to become pregnant because of poor oocyte quality after one cycle of IVF were split into two groups - 56 women were given three milligrams of melatonin before the next IVF cycle, and 59 just received a standard IVF cycle without melatonin.
The team found that melatonin treatment significantly increased melatonin concentrations in the women's follicles and significantly decreased concentrations of the damaging 8-OhdG. Their results showed 50 per cent of the eggs from women who taken melatonin could be successfully fertilised, as opposed to 22.8 per cent in the control group. When the eggs were transplanted into the womb, 19 per cent (11 out of the total 56) of the women became pregnant, as opposed to 10.2 per cent (six out of total 59) in the control group. The work was published in the Journal of Pineal Research.
'This work needs to be confirmed, but we believe that melatonin treatment is likely to become a significant option for improving oocyte quality in women who cannot become pregnant because of poor oocyte quality', said Professor Tamura. 'Our next step is to analyze exactly how reactive oxygen species harm the oocyte, and how melatonin reduces oxidative stress in the oocyte'.
Professor Russel Reiter from the UT Health Science Center, San Antonio, Texas, who co-authored the paper, agreed. He told BioNews: 'it is important that this work be independently confirmed on larger numbers of subjects'. But he added that the findings 'make perfect sense', as melatonin has been shown to protect many different cells and tissues from oxidative damage - the same type of damage known to occur to oocytes.