Excellent eggs: Evidence based supplements & strategies to optimize your fertility with Dr. Lisa Adams, ND

Dr Lisa Adams is a Naturopathic Doctor and a cheerleader for women’s health and happiness. Her practice expertise developed over the last 15 years of working and inspiring high-achieving women to look and feel energized and have clarity and calm in their daily lives. She has a clinical focus on fertility, pregnancy and children’s health, as well as creating hormone harmony throughout a woman’s life. Inspired by her many health challenges throughout motherhood, she has become passionate about helping women transform fatigue and fertility fears into feeling fully energized, excited and supported through their journey.

1:58

Q. Where is the best place to start with fertility?

A. I always recommend getting your support and health team together. A Naturopathic Doctor can be a great addition to that team.

2:47

Q. What is egg quality?

A. Your egg quality is the ability of an oo-site or egg to turn into a healthy baby. Many things can determine your egg quality besides age; however, age still greatly impacts it. It can vary quite a bit from woman to woman, at different ages and even cycle to cycle.

4:02

Q. How is the quality of the egg quantified or measured?

A. We don’t have good measures or a definitive test for egg quality. Unfortunately, I’ve even seen people see specialists, and they’re told that their factory is shut down or that there’s no chance that they can do it.

5:17

Q. What signs can tell you hypothetically whether or not someone has poor egg quality?

A. If you’ve been trying to conceive for a long time, if you’re older, if you’re told you have unexplained infertility or an autoimmune condition, these signs show a good chance of diminished quality.

6:22

Q. What step should an individual take after trying to conceive for a year or being told they have unexplained infertility?

A. A big thing I’m trying to always convey to my patients is even if nobody can take away some of our problems, we can take control of our actions. And one of those big ones is lifestyle. It’s important to have an overall healthy diet and lifestyle. Take care of yourself like you’re already pregnant. More specifically, that could be the Mediterranean diet. This diet is high in protein with lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. And the other big piece that I see a lot with women is we don’t want to be fasting or crash dieting. If weight is a concern for you, enlist the help of a professional who has training in fertility.

8:13

Q. Is there anything that women and individuals should look at avoiding when looking at improving their egg quality?

A. Yes. We would have to be pretty careful with alcohol. We see it reducing the success of IVF. This doesn’t mean you can’t have any, but we have to watch how many drinks we have in a week and how many drinks per sitting. So we want less than four a week. And if we have more than four in one sitting, we see that as detrimental.

9:14

Q. How long does an individual have to make various lifestyle changes before they can start seeing positive changes?

A. We can see some of the changes really quickly. I’ll see people in my clinic, and they’ll start a medicated IVF cycle the following week. There’s research where we begin to see the impact pretty quickly. That being said, the longer we’re working on our lifestyle, the better the outcome. Generally, I’d say six months is great. Even when we look at a nutrient like folic acid, which we should be taking if we’re trying to fall pregnant, taking it five to six months before conception is helpful as it takes that long to build up in the bloodstream.

10:18

Q. How long does an egg take in the development stage, where they’re actively exposed to our diet, lifestyle and medication?

A. We are born with all of our oocytes. So, when we talk about egg quality and age, our body’s environment will impact egg quality over time. That being said, we are looking at an impact of three to six months before the final stages of development and release.

11:00

Q. Are there any supplements that show evidence to support the improvement of egg quality or chances of conception?

A. There are a few that stand out. There aren’t many with great research, though, so please don’t spend tons of money on expensive supplements. Depending on whether or not you’re on a natural cycle or you’re working with a fertility clinic, there are a few that are more impactful.

The main one that I see is still under-tested and under-utilised is vitamin D. In Canada, we don’t get enough sunshine or vitamin D. We need to know our baseline levels of vitamin D and take enough to be healthy and have good fertility. This is the only nutrient we know that does impact egg quality.

A prenatal vitamin, too, can be great. Within the prenatal, the most important one is folic acid. So, generally, I do recommend taking a prenatal. But at minimum, it’s vitamin D and folic acid that we’re looking to get the optimal dose of.

There’s been a lot of conversation about CoQ10 over the years. If I don’t recommend it to patients, they ask about it. Research in Toronto shows that with CoQ10, more pregnancies happen. But the goal isn’t just to get pregnant. We also want a healthy baby, and CoQ10 wasn’t improving live birth rates.

Then there’s melatonin, which we actually have better research for. Many women are scared to take it because they feel like they’ll be dependent on it. But this can result in more live birth rates, more pregnancies, and healthy babies.

16:21

Q. What is the best takeaway or resource you recommend to individuals trying to improve their egg quality or fertility?

A. There are some good resources online. My best recommendation is to get personally assessed by professionals. We all have different health histories and different things going on. The other big piece is our partner, who comes with a second set of genetics. We need to know about their health too. Make it a team effort. Getting assessed is the best way to get personalised information, which is the biggest thing. Get the right information and take care of yourself.

About Dr. Lisa

Dr Lisa Adams is a Naturopathic Doctor and cheerleader for women’s health and happiness. Her practice expertise developed over the last 15 years of working with inspiring, high achieving women looking to feel energized and have clarity and calm in their daily lives. She has a clinical focus on fertility, pregnancy and children’s health, as well as creating hormone harmony throughout a woman’s life.

Inspired through her own many challenges throughout motherhood, she has become passionate about helping women to transform fatigue and fertility fear to feeling fully energized, excited and supported on their journey. She’s worked with many women and couples over the years at all stages of their fertility journey, whether they are just starting to think about a family or are currently working with a fertility clinic.

When she’s not leading women and families in health, Dr. Lisa may be found sipping a good cup of coffee, cooking, or enjoying a nature hike with her feisty ten year old daughter.