Can Acupuncture Improve Male Fertility?

You're listening to Don't Tell Me To Relax. The award-winning No Nonsense Always Friendly, Down to Earth Fatility Podcast. I'm Hannah, a fatility acupuncturist and big believer that fatility care and education should be better. Each week I sit down with a guest to share real stories, advice and honest conversations to help you feel better informed and for care and connection we have our Don't Tell Me To Relax online fatility community and our clinics in London and across the UK. To find out more about getting involved and working with us the details are in the show notes. Don't Tell Me To Relax is proudly sponsored by the lovely people at Acupyps. Acupyps is the original airseed company founded by acupuncturists Zoe Young. Airseeds are tiny seeds or metal beads attached to an adhesif and placed on pressure points in the air. They're brilliant for calming the mind, easing anxiety and restoring balance. We use them in oclinics all the time. Head to acupyps.com to find out more and use the code Relax for 20% off. Welcome to our many May series. Each week this month we will be taking a closer look at all aspects of male fertility. This series will end with a live Q&A with male fertility expert Claire Mooney from Fatility Solutions. You can send in your question and join us live. The link with further details is on the end of the video. Hello and welcome to today's episode where we are going to be discussing male fertility as part of our men in May series. And we're going to be looking specifically at acupuncture and male fertility, which is a topic surprisingly we haven't covered before. And I am with Olivia Poje, who is a Western medical doctor and traditional Chinese medicine practitioner based in Austria. Olivia specialises in treatment for male infertility and she uses a combined approach of acupuncture, herbal medicine and lifestyle modification. So Olivia, welcome to the show. It's lovely to have you with us today. Thanks for having me and giving me a stage. So can I ask before we get into this topic, you are a Western medicine trained doctor. What led you to move into Chinese medicine? Well, when I was in med school, there was a lecture offered that was titled Introduction to Acupuncture. And I said in because I was interested to look like over the plate. And yeah, it finally got me. Yeah. And I'm really happy that I'm able to combine it in my everyday clinic. And it's really, really, it's so worthy to have like two aces under your sleeve. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And what was it that led you to take that training and specialize in fertility and specifically in male fertility? Because it's something I know you practice in Austria, but in the UK, we don't see so many practitioners who do this. So what was it that led you down that path? I always, well, I intended to become a gynecologist. That didn't happen for a lot of reasons. So like in my in my TCM clinic, I then specialized in TCM gynecology. Did a lot of fertility work as well. And then kind of found out that no one cared about poor men. So I took it as a challenge to dig deeper into also Chinese medicine sources. Is there something we could help them with? And actually found out the Chinese medicine is really, really huge in knowledge on pimping up like male health. Let's put it that way. And so because no one else did it, I really specialized in it. And that's what I ended up doing quite exclusively in my clinic now. And I'm really happy to have taken that extra round. Yeah, I really like to work with men. Yeah. And you know, well, it's something that we're trying to encourage more and more as we grow and we learn more. It's a big part of the work that I feel like it's a big bit of the jigsaw that we've been missing over here in the UK. Absolutely. Yeah, like everywhere in the world. Like it's the same in office because I'm still the only one. Yeah. Okay. So so we do hear a lot about acupuncture and female fertility. I think it's it's really well known. It's really well established. But but can you tell us a little bit specifically about acupuncture for male fertility? So what is actually happening for the men when we do acupuncture? Okay. So acupuncture as we know by now and there's a lot of evidence. So I'd really, really love to point out that acupuncture's evidence-based medicine meanwhile. Yeah, there's a lot of research around it so we can definitely prove that it's working and know the pathways it's working where yeah, it comes from yeah. And like when it comes to pimping up sperm quality, it's mainly through the pathways on the one hand or firstly via increasing a testicular blood flow, which means that the testicles are nourished for better. Like with nutrients, but also with oxygen of course. We can also decrease oxidative stress, which is a huge topic. There's good studies out there that prove that acupuncture can do that, which is really, really important. Yeah, it's one of the magic tricks we can do with whatever we can think of. Yeah. And firstly, it is that acupuncture is able to increase a hormones or even balance male hormones. And that's a very important pathway as well. So like it's free-dimensional I'd say. Okay, so in some way similar to how it's working on the female fertility picture because we talk about blood flow, yeah, blood flow, hormones, oxidative stress or anti-inflammatory response or all that kind of thing. Okay, so it's quite similar. And so when a man comes to see you in clinic, what do you do? Like what does a consultation look like? What is the treatment plan for them? All right. So the first question I asked them is okay, so for how long have they been on their fertility journey? Because that kind of really has a huge impact on okay, how like fast do I want them to have several exams taken? Yeah. And then we're discussing what they want me to accompany them. Like is it like spontaneous conception they're aiming for or is it that they are planning to go through IVF or XC anyways? Yeah, that kind of really shifts my perspective a little bit. Yeah. And then I definitely want to have a semen analysis from him. I also want some lab work done like checking hormones, yeah, checking nutrients, checking vitamins and everything. And then I want an ultrasound of his testicles. That's the free like Western medicine things that I need to to have. And then I will take a lot of time to do a medical history with them. Also like half them checked up in terms of Chinese medicine diagnosis like doing tongue and pulse diagnosis checked for like their lifestyle since that's the huge topic, yeah, because as soon as I see the results of their sperm test, I kind of can figure out okay, where you know the diminished quality of let's say morphology comes from and morphology like in 90% yeah, um, point is towards some kind of lifestyle sin, yeah, either it's like sleep, uh, deprivation or it's um, they're taking any drugs for example or they're smoking alcohol, they're doing hot baths, whatever, yeah. So um, yeah, that's the combination I do. So like like the first consultation with everything in a very integrative way takes up to one and a half hours, yeah. Okay, and then in terms of treatment, how regularly do you suggest you see the man to see results? Like with acupuncture, um, it, it's dosage dependent and that's very, very important to kind of really make them aware of that fact. Acupuncture cannot work, yeah, if it's applied to infrequently, that means I need to have them in clinic once a week for at last at least 10 weeks. So 10 weeks here is a very, very important period of treatment time because that is the average development cycle of a sperm. Like after 10 weeks, yeah, of very intensive treatment, yeah, um, we can kind of really assume to get results, yeah. So there has been a like complete change of sperm, yeah. So the sperm that he's a checker lady, after 10 weeks of treatment is a complete turnover and should be like of far better quality. Yeah so it's that consistency over that period of time so you get that impact. Absolutely that's very very necessary. You cannot speed up therapy results. That's just not possible because development takes that amount of time and that's very very important to like talk very very clearly to them and I make with them like a treatment contract. Yeah I don't treat them if they don't agree to come in weekly and stick to that 10 weeks plan. Yeah because then it's you know it's then they they will go away and say well I keep on to didn't work. Well that's not so true you didn't have to appropriate those such of acupuncture. Yeah and so can I ask what are the results like in your clinic because you must be able to evaluate in a much more concise way than we are around egg quality. Obviously for females we can see changes in menstrual cycles and improvement in general health but it's very difficult to quantify whereas if you're doing a semen test before you start treatment and then a semen test afterwards you must be able to get a bit more of a stare on on the results so what are they like? Well it depends on you know the parameter you want to improve. So if it is like the amount of sperm in the acucolate or even motility so the way they're moving that is to be improved quite easily through one 10 to 12 week circuit. When it comes to morphology that's the toughest parameter so sometimes that can be quite frustrating to be very honest because it needs two or three of those 10 week turnovers and that takes a lot of patience. From you know my my client my patient but also for me like I want to have results. I want to get them going but sometimes you know that that's nature. It takes a while depends on how long or for how many years the harm has been there. So I'd say like motility and quantity can be changed about like improved by let's say 30 to 50% to be very realistic here and morphology is quite hard and it is a very good result to have it like from 2% proper sperm cells to 3% yeah that is a huge success yeah. And do you measure DNA fragmentation as well? I do like I'm in a lucky position to have my own lab because I'm an embryologist as well so I run all the tests that I think that are necessary by myself so I can trust myself yeah I really see them in my microscope and I see the improvement even if it's not in numbers yeah I can see it like in the microscope and I always test for DNA fragmentation whenever there's a history of recurrent miscarriages or there is no fertilization after IVF for example or even with XC yeah or there's early miscarriage yeah so I think that's the main like the reasons when I I run a DNA fragmentation test. Do you see positive impact from acupuncture as well in terms of DNA improvement? That I cannot like sign for sure yeah because whenever there's DNA fragmentation there's a lot of treatment things going on at the same like time yeah so it's very very hard yeah to like say it's exclusively because acupuncture did work yeah because whenever there is a DNA fragmentation assumption yeah then I said them on supplements and immediately on herbs I do a lot of lifestyle changes yeah I do a lot of like working with my the convent medicine yeah so acupuncture then yeah it's just one of the horses yeah I yeah in front of my carriage yeah yeah so I guess what you're doing is that is that full sweet of support from lifestyle to nutrition to acupuncture to to medical so it's the full 360 approach absolutely and I think that is necessary like in in every man it would be you know in a perfect world that would be a their approach I would wish to be able to go for in every man but sometimes you know we have the problem with time sometimes we have the problem with money yeah all those things like are quite costly and sometimes we yeah he is lacking of like will to change his lifestyle we've seen a huge decline in sperm parameters and every where we go there is this theory that semen is getting poor equality and that male fertility is becoming such a huge factor for fertility issues in your opinion what do you think is driving that that's a big question and a lot of people are worrying about it yeah and doing research on it and what the conclusion so far is that it's mainly our lifestyle so that means like a poor intake of healthy nutrients so we are all eating a poor diet even if we try to eat a lot of veg the balls they are not so rich in like selenium sink and whatever it would be needed yeah because the soil is just you know with no components yeah to feed that and we do sleep far too little like people in former times he is to sleep a lot more we are working too many hours without having proper rest yeah that creates oxidative stress we do live in a plastic planet or on a plastic planet that is for sure and they are so plastics are endocrine disruptors we do know that they kind of really fake estrogen in my amendment yeah which is quite harmful for men as well we use a lot of technology and Wi-Fi yeah as proved in research harm sperm a lot yeah and also heat and that is one of the easiest components to avoid yeah but very essential because sperm or needs like the sperm factory so the testicles need a perfect temperature of 34 degrees Celsius I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit but every like Celsius rise of temperature yeah has a huge huge impact in a negative way on sperm quality and we're doing a lot of things that improve temperature like we sit yeah most men have a sitting chop yeah or they do a lot of sitting sports like doing motorcycling or cycling for example we were very tired trousers yeah like the Scottish of course did a research yeah that wearing a a a a a a a a a a a a would be you know very very sperm-friendly way of dressing yeah we're using like hot baths and go to sauna yeah for our wellness treatment yeah and that is also harmful so I would say we are creating too much heat in our body yeah like coming you know from outside but also from inside because we're like we're tending towards creating inflammations whether that is silent inflammations or that is inflammation via infections like COVID and everything yeah that is one of the major things I say or the major reasons yeah and it's all you know a bouquet of flowers yeah it's never just one reason excuse if you if you if you ask a client yeah and really deep yeah you'll find a bunch of reasons yeah and do you test and treat infections as well because we're hearing more and more about the seminal microbiome and this it's impact on sperm parameters is that something that you come across as well I do that's why I really need to have an ultrasound done on the testicles yeah to exclude that there is a epidemiologist epidemiologist might is whatever it's called yeah an infection of the epidemiologist or the testicles or the prostite prostitutes which is often like undetected yeah so there's no symptoms for it yeah that's the perfect yeah you just really need to you know put the ultrasound on it and then you'll find it and you need to check the parameters yeah for infections as well and then you'll find them And so if somebody is thinking about starting acupuncture to treat their semen, you did mention this idea of doing it for 10 weeks. What if somebody is about to go in for a round of IVF? What if their IVF is booked in in, let's say, a month's time, so they don't have that time period? What would you recommend to those that group of people? That's a very good question and the very like realistic setting, because they often come with, like, that's the situation now. Yeah, can you still help me? Yes, I do. I do. I keep on to them once a week then. But I don't aim to change sperm parameters in terms of DNA. I can't do that in too little time. What I can do is I can improve quantity and I can improve that and as a major outcome, I can improve mutility. So that's what I always do. And like prior to the AC collection, yeah, I want them to come in a day prior to their female partner having the AC collection. I really like to do acupuncture to kind of really speed them up. Yeah. Do you ever do electro acupuncture for them for the men? Yeah. According to research, electro acupuncture outperforms the manual acupuncture by far. So that would be the tool out of our TCM acupuncturist toolbox we should definitely use when you're wanting to have the biggest results. Yes. Okay. Great. And so how do you find it? Because do you find that men come willingly to your clinic in that they book themselves in? Or do you find that they their partners encourage them to book in? How does it happen in your clinic? Very, very rarely they book themselves in, to be honest. Most of the times it's via their female partner. But most of the times they are willing to do something. I'm very happy that there is something they can actually do to improve their quality. Because from the Western medicine side, they get told, okay, there's nothing you could do like that that's clearly an indication. Yeah. But that's not true. Yeah. And fortunately more and more of the fertility clinics, like give it a try, yeah, and try to switch from like until a few years, yeah, all the clinics would have gone for 80% XC. Yeah. And now there is, you know, there's a switch in like mindset, I'd say, so that they kind of really try to be able to perform at least IVF, which gives the act the opportunity to choose the sperm by herself, yeah, which is something that we can't fake because we don't know the criteria, yeah, the act has for the sperm that she finds the most appropriate, yeah. And as soon as we do not know anything about that and cannot fake it, IVF instead of XC, yeah, is the best option. And then it's also proved by a different percentage of life birth rates. And do you think that things are changing in terms of clinics? As you said, often people, it often in fertility clinics, they might talk about nutrition, they might talk about supplements for male health, but certainly over here, acupuncture is not something that is recommended for the men. For the women increasingly, we see it a lot, but is that changing in your area? Obviously because people have got access to you. So you've seen that come through? Yeah, definitely. So I get, you know, several men meanwhile like transferred to me, yeah, with the, you know, or referred to me, with the question of, okay, can you bimbe up sperm? We've got time, yeah, they want to have an IVF, yeah, just try to like make it work. Yeah. Yeah. And that's great. That's great. You know, we can at least give it a try, you know, if he's willing, yeah, and he's body is willing, yeah, that's where it's very, very good. And that kind of really improves the chances of, you know, the couple having a successful fertility cure any usually, yeah, because it always takes like, there's a good saying, it takes two to tango. And as long as we focus quite exclusively on egg quality, we'll miss half of the game. Yeah. And in many ways, it's kind of easier to, to reach sperm health and, and seem and quality, because egg is so deep within the body, there's only one, I mean, obviously, if you're doing fertility treatment, there will be multiple, but it seems that because semen is made from zero, that there is a greater opportunity for improvements. Absolutely. It's kind of the logical theory behind it. Yeah. And every 10 weeks, you know, the guy has the opportunity to completely change his quality and his output, yeah. And what I'd really love to point out, because I do that in clinic a lot, is that sperm quality is also, you know, a very elegant and easy window to a man's health, means if his sperm quality is low, yeah, that kind of gives us, gives us proof that, you know, the cell quality all over his body cells, yeah, might also not be the best, yeah, and has to be improved, yeah, it's just, you know, sperm cells are easy cells, you know, to get, get, get results from, yeah, and to test, yeah, you can't do that so easily with any other body cell, yeah, but it gives us, you know, it gives us a few on, okay, that's his overall health, and we do know that man with poor sperm quality are far more likely to suffer from various cancer types in future, yeah, so that's, you know, something we need to be aware of and make them aware of, yeah, it's not about for only about, sure, you know, first step is they want to fertilize the egg, they want to have a child, but secondly, yeah, it's prevent them from getting cancer. Yes, and I, you know, that came up a lot at the fertility conference this year, there was a lot of, they were calling it the canary in the coal mine, in the, this idea of using semen parameters as a measure for male longevity, and we're kind of missing out, we're missing out on a trick because exactly like you say, we only think of it in terms of fertility, but it's a, it's a massive market for long term health and spotting issues and having an opportunity to intervene before they develop further. Yeah, it's, it's an alert of the body, that's it. Yeah, yeah. So for anybody who's feeling skeptical or they're, or they're like, you know, they're thinking, acupuncture, I'm not sure it's for me, what would you say? How would you kind of, I've sort of given up trying to sell acupuncture, I'm like, you are there in it or you're not, but so I feel me asking you this question, but what would you say to somebody who was feeling on the fence about it? Well, you, you can't talk about anything that you haven't tried, yeah, so give it a try and you'll see it doesn't hurt that bad, yeah, it puts you in a very, very relaxed state that I think especially men really appreciate, yeah, and if you still, you know, don't like needles, we can easily switch to having laser acupuncture or whatever, so there's more options because we as acupuncturists have a toolbox full of tools and not only needles. Yes. Yeah. Lovely, Olivia, what would be really great is if we could link some of the research, you know, so we could put it on the podcast, so if you have any papers, so if somebody was feeling like they wanted to look at the science behind what we're saying and they wanted to check out what studies have been done, that would be a really fabulous resource if we can pop that on at the end. Yeah, I will provide that for sure, yeah. Fantastic. Well, thank you very much for your time today and sharing your wisdom and your experience, it's really, really appreciated. We hope you have found this helpful. If you'd like more on fertility education, please see our teaching to conceive free course linked at the end of the show. You'll also find the link to join our community. For more personalized fertility support, you can work with us one to one in clinic and online. You can book a discovery call to find out more.