143: Resveratrol & IVF: Does It Hurt Implantation? New Research Explained Dr. Mark Ratner
36m 9s
This podcast episode debunks the widespread belief that resveratrol harms implantation during IVF. The controversy stems from a 2019 retrospective study of ~3,000 women, which reported a 43% lower pregnancy rate and 2.5 times higher miscarriage risk in those taking 200 mg of resveratrol. However, the resveratrol group was significantly older, had lower AMH, higher FSH, and used more egg donors—all factors that independently worsen outcomes. The study did not control for these confounders or disclose the resveratrol formulation or duration of use. Since then, four prospective, randomized trials (on PCOS and general IVF populations) have shown resveratrol improves egg and embryo quality without reducing pregnancy rates. In fact, three of these trials found a trend toward higher pregnancy rates, though not statistically significant due to small sample sizes. The mechanism involves resveratrol’s activation of SIRT1, a sirtuin enzyme that supports ovarian reserve, egg quality, and uterine receptivity. Low SIRT1 is linked to diminished ovarian reserve and recurrent implantation failure. Despite resveratrol’s poor bioavailability (only ~1% reaches the bloodstream), its metabolites retain biological activity. The host and guest argue that the 2019 study’s flaws have led to an unwarranted fear of resveratrol, potentially depriving patients of its benefits. They caution against relying on retrospective data and emphasize the importance of prospective, controlled evidence in fertility treatment.
Out there, people are concerned about taking risk of air atrol because they've been told it can impact implantation. So don't take it if you're after ovulation, don't take it around your transfer. But people are really happy based on the research to take it leading up to ovulation or leading up to an egg retrieval because it's shown to help with egg quality. Can you talk on both the egg quality and the uterine side of it? The key here though is that look, the retrospective study showed a 43% reduction in pregnancy rates, which is a, this sounds like a pretty dramatic number. But the trend in three of these four studies was towards improved pregnancy rates that just didn't reach statistical significance. Yeah. By listening to the Coherence Code podcast, you agree to not use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition, either in yourself or others. Consult your own physician or healthcare provider for any medical issues that you may be having. This entire disclaimer also applies to any guests or contributors to the podcast. Welcome to the Coherence Code podcast, where we explore how the mind and body work together, so you can move from stress and inter conflict to clarity, calm and alignment. My name is Lauren Brown. I'm a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and a Clinical at the Therapist. And through my work, I've seen that healing happens when you remove what gets in the way, and allow the body and the nervous system to do what they're designed to do to heal. Welcome to the Coherence Code podcast. Welcome back. We have Dr. Mark Ratner with us again, and this is a follow-up. Dr. Mark Ratner will discuss a little bit about his background, but this episode is because we did an episode on NAD support, and he works over at their logics. He's their chief science officer, and they have many supplements with respect to reproductive health. And one of the ones we were talking about is just NAD support, the different forms of the precursors, and then other ingredients you can add. And in that discussion, we were talking about resveratrol, because they have a resveratrol like supplement inside their NAD support product. And we were having this discussion in real time, if you guys listen to the episode where I'm on the internet digging, because I'm like, I've heard really good things for resveratrol for egg quality, but I've heard not so good for transfer. Like it can affect you with a receptivity implantation. And then Mark said, "Well, I have a study that says differently, that it can help with implantation. Here is why." And so we said, after the episode, let's come back and discuss this, because Mark says, "I'm going to look into this." So this is us coming back. So the episode was just released before this. So go check all the wonderful things about NAD support and all the things marketing versus science that are out on the internet and on podcasts, so you can learn about that, and how you can support the cell and mitochondria health and NAD support. So that is there. Now we're going to do deep dive into resveratrol. So Mark, I would love for you to kind of talk about there is out there. People are concerned about taking resveratrol, because they've been told it can impact implantation. So don't take it if you're after ovulation. Don't take it around your transfer, but people are really happy based on the research to take it leading up to ovulation or leading up to an egg retrieval, because it's shown to help with egg quality. I would though, because of time, I'd love to dive into the uterine side of it right away, because that's where there seems to be debate, and you seem to have the most current up-to-date information to share today. Yeah. Well, thanks, Lauren, for bringing us back together and letting us kind of do a deep dive into this. Interesting, really interesting subject. So the question that came up related to a study that was published back in 2019, it was a Japanese study and a retrospective study that looked at, it was about 3,000 women that they looked at, and they identified about a hundred of those women. All these women were going through IVF. They identified about a hundred of those women who had taken Res Veritrol 200 milligrams per day, leading up to their embryo transfer. And what they found was that there was about a 45% reduction in pregnancy rates in those women, the hundred or so women that had taken Res Veritrol compared to the 29 hundred women who had not had Res Veritrol. So I'm actually, can I share my screen and I'll show you a few of the actually. And we'll walk, we can talk through it as well. So let's share your screen there. And for our listeners, we have our YouTube channel where you can do this, you can watch it. And for those that are listening audio only, Marit could agree to do really good description of what we have on the screen. Absolutely. We'll talk our way through this real quickly. So why, why is Res Veritrol of interest to begin with? Well, it's because we know that Res Veritrol impact something called Sir Twins. Okay. Sir Twins, there are seven different Sir Twins. These are enzymes that they really function as the master regulators of cellular metabolism. So the seven different ones, they're called Sir T1, Sir T2, Sir T3, Sir T4, up to send in, right? And the first one, Sir T1, those are really important for female reproductive health. And we know that in women with diminished ovarian reserve, either in a women who are in their late 30s, early 40s, or it can even be in women with pathologic diminished ovarian reserve, you know, younger women who have premature loss of ovarian reserve. And those women, Sir T1 levels are reduced. And there's been studies that show that if we can improve ovarian Sir T1 levels, we will slow the loss of ovarian reserve and improve and quality. And we can improve that, what you're going to talk about with like the red wine, the Res Veritrol. But also, I think, in fasting also, right? That also has been shown. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Because one of the things that we understand is that Sir T2ins do the same thing that fasting does in that they activate something called M-Tour. Well, actually they suppress M-Tour. And in doing that, they sort of really help with cellulone Jeviti and healthspan. The other thing that we know about this Sir T2in number one, what we call Sir T1, is that it is really important for endometrial development and what we call desigualization. That means where the lining of the uterus essentially develops into a state that is receptive to the embryo. And so we need adequate Sir T1 levels in the uterine wall for embryo implantation. And there's a study that was published that showed that in women with recurrent implantation failure, where they're going to write EF, good embryos, good quality embryos are being transferred, but they fail to implant. So we call it recurrent implantation failure. In those women, Sir T1 levels are about 40% lower than normal. It's interesting, you say that can you go back to that slide? So I'm just going to highlight a few things for the listeners that you shared. So you're showing that Sir T1, the Sir T1s, when they are reduced in women with diminishing over in reserve, we're seeing them reduce. So we want to see a higher level of this. So increasing the Sir T1 slows the loss of a brain reserve and it facilitates uteruseptivity. And that's important because so many people, it was like it's all about the egg, all about the ovaries, and that the uterus was just a container. And we now know that the uterus is also important, not just the not just the egg, blood flow, the immune system, all that's important. So what's happening with certain chemicals, enzymes, immune markers, inflammatory markers will impact, as you said, recurrent implantation failure, you got chromosomally normal looking embryos, and yet they're not implanting. So this is about, hey, why am I, embryo is not sticking? And this is what you're talking about here with respect to this. Right. Exactly. All right. So how can we improve Sir T1 levels? Well, there's a class of compounds that are called still beans, okay? They are plantaride, and they have been shown to increase the activity of these sirc or sirtuin enzymes. Resveratrol is actually the best known stilly, okay? It's the probably the first one that was ever really scientifically explored. And resveratrol has been shown to increase sirtuin one levels, okay? The problem is that as a supplement resveratrol has has an issue, okay? The first issue is that it has poor absorption from the GI tract, okay? There are other ways that people try to package it. They can put it in the liposomal type of formulation to improve absorption. But even if you get the absorption to improve a little bit, resveratrol still undergoes what's called the first past effect. And that means when it gets absorbed from the intestine, in the lining of the intestine, and in the liver, the resveratrol gets broken down into other metabolites. And it's actually 99% of the resveratrol that you absorb ends up getting broken down, and only 1% of it ends up in the bloodstream as actual resveratrol. But it turns out that the
does other metabolites also have biological activity. All right, so this was a study. Next slide here shows the study that we talked about last time. - I wanna highlight this 'cause in prepping for our discussion today, that was one of the things that was highlighted, actually two things that I wanted to talk about. So I'm gonna say it so you can bring it up. One is you just mentioned. Resveratrol, well-known, poorly absorbed. So it's not what you take, it's what you absorb that counts. So although people are taking resveratrol, they may not be getting the benefit because it's poorly absorbed. And this is why you're gonna talk about the other that the terror still being idea 'cause that has been shown to be highly absorbed. The other thing when you talk about, like when we talk about the egg quality in mice, they do so well. We treat mice and we get such great results, but we don't always translate into the human trials. So when you're talking, can you share between most studies in human trials? 'Cause I think we still don't have the abundance of human trials, but I may find it so different from talking to you. - No, that's exactly right. But there are some analogies between mice and men for human female mice and women. And I'll show you those in a sec. Okay, so this study that we talked about at the end of the last podcast was this Japanese study, 3,000 women, 100 of them roughly took 200 milligrams of resveratrol a day and a 43% lower pregnancy rate. Those women that took the resveratrol and the miscarriage rate was increased by two and a half times. Okay, but if you go and you dive into this study, what you find out is that the women that took resveratrol had at baseline a significantly higher age when they came into the study. So the average resveratrol person was 39 and a half, the average control person was 37. And you might say, well, that's only two years, but those are crucial years in terms of egg quality. Okay, a two year difference between say 37 and 39 or 40, that's a 25% increase in annual ployity. In other words, the risk of an abnormal embryo, chromosomely abnormal goes up by a 25 to 30% during those two years. The subjects that got resveratrol that took resveratrol, their AMH level was significantly lower, their FSH level was significantly higher. They had almost double the use of XC compared to the resveratrol group compared to the non-resveratrol group. And the resveratrol group had a lower average number of embryos transferred. So the point here is that there were a huge number of differences. This is the trouble with retrospective studies. The challenge is that when you're not randomizing people prospectively, you're not enrolling them in the study and flipping a coin to see which group they're going to be in. Okay, when you look back retrospectively, it's very hard to control for all of these other confound, do I say confounding variables, okay? I have a question for you on that. So one is, let's just for reference purposes, those listening. So the study is called the influence of a veritrol supplementation on IVF embryo transversal cycle outcomes. - Direct. - Repro, Biomed, online 2019. So that's that aspect. I just want to reference that. The other part is what you're saying is that because of those retrospective study, meaning that the demographics weren't the same. They're the people that were taken to resveratrol who itself selected that were the tougher group. They already had factors that would show poor outcomes in an IVF cycle. - Exactly. They had a higher likelihood of poor quality embryos, poor quality eggs and therefore poor quality embryos. If you work in very apples to apples, as they say. - Exactly. - And the authors though chose to sort of say that this was primarily an implantation issue where maybe it wasn't. And again, in the look at the full paper, they don't disclose what the form of resveratrol dosing was or how long these patients took it for. And it discoses the supplementation rationale. In other words, with these women who decided on their own that they wanted to take resveratrol or did their treating, you know, the healthcare providers say, "I want you to take resveratrol." For some reason that basically they had higher risk of perhaps poor egg quality. So is this the 2019 study? And is this the study that kind of switch people to put in the doubt that it may not be safe to take it during implantation? Is this the way it is? - Yeah, this was the first study that was published. Okay. So if we go subsequently to this not 2019 study, they have now actually been four more studies published, which have been randomized prospective studies. In other words, where they enroll subjects, women who are going through IDF and half of them are controlled or placebo and the other half get resveratrol. And by doing that in a random way, you control for those other variables. And so the first study on the slide here was just a few months after that Japanese study, this was published in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction in a Genetics. They had 61 women who were going through IDF because they had PCOS, okay. This was a triple-blinded randomized trial. The women either were randomized to 800 milligrams of live veritrol or placebo. What did they find? They found that the resveratrol group had an increased number of high quality eggs and embryos, but they found no reduction in pregnancy rates in the resveratrol group. - I wanna repeat this 'cause this is a dental plan for people. So in that study, the second study in 2019 with resveratrol, those that were taking it, they had PCOS comparing apples to apples. Now the way it was 'cause it was a retrospective study. Correct, am I understanding that correctly? - No, it was prospective. This was prospective of the first post. - Yeah, I meant to say prospective, which is why they're able to control the randomization apples to apples and the group that did resveratrol had, can you share that again, increased number of high quality eggs and embryos. So they saw better eggs and they saw better embryos. And there was no change in pregnancy rates. So two things I wanna ask or one thing is, so the other study showed that there was a reduction and that's where you were saying, I don't think that's a good study, the first one. This one saying it did not impact pregnancy rates. I have just a question, did it not improve pregnancy rates then? I'm just curious about that. - So if you look at the data, these are what they, when studies like this are published, they're gonna say was it statistically significant or not? Okay. And in order to find statistical significance in certain end points like live birth rate or clinical pregnancy rate, you need really, really large studies. And so in this particular, I think in three of these four studies, there was a trend towards improved pregnancy rates, but it didn't reach statistical significance because these were not huge studies. This was 61 patients. You know, when they did just as an example, when they did the big study in PCOS patients that compared clomid with letharzole and was published in the New England Journal, this was NIH funded this study. They had 800 couples that they enrolled because that's how big a study you need to show a statistically significant difference in an end point like pregnancy. So the key here though is that look, the retrospective study showed a 43% reduction in pregnancy rates, which is a, this sounds like a pretty dramatic number, but the trends in three of these four studies was towards improved pregnancy rates that just didn't reach statistical significance. - Yeah, I'll put, I wanna put my lens on it or repeat what you just said 'cause there is a fear, a concern that residual could impact implantation so people stop taking it. And what you're sharing here is, first of all, we're seeing, and you're gonna talk about other studies like that, XC study you sent me, there's an increase in egg quality increase, in embryo quality increase in blastocyst rates, increase in all these things you wanna see, but statistically not an increase in pregnancy rates, but like you said, trending. So the point I wanna make is, trending to higher pregnancy rates, not reducing. So the idea here is that, you know, do no harm. You're saying by the most current research, that may be a myth. And I tied this into like that menopause study, you know, the 2001 Women's Health Study, where the women for 20 years didn't suffer because there was a fear about HRT, and now they're saying, well, those women, I'm just gonna tangent. The women in the study were all over 60. That's not usually when you start HRT for women in anopause menopause. They use this synthetic progesterone. They think it was actually the progesterone or not the estrogen that caused the issue. Now they're doing bioidentical, the dosage is different, and they have a different delivery. So they show how flawed that study was, and they even said it increased breast cancer, but then when they looked at the absolute, it was overstated, and it was just a poorly presented study that changed how women were treated in perimenopause menopause for 25 years. Needlessly, yeah. Needlessly. So I wanna bring this up is, there was one study they came out, it went viral, and people stopped resveratial. No different than people having McDonald's French fries to improve their transfer day. It's great for intention, but just because somebody had French fries, if they had three IVF cycles that didn't work, and then on one IVF cycle, they had French fries, and that cycle worked, and they told people, now everybody uses French fries on transfer day, that's not science, but great intention. But it can stop, in this case, what we're talking about was Veritrol, my interpretation from our emails in our phone calls is that that 2019 study may be misleading and giving people the wrong information,
where they could still be benefiting. And the studies that you are showing now with the first one was that better egg, better embryo, and trending in pregnancy rates, not a decline. So let's continue on 'cause you got more. - Okay, so I'll go through these other three studies really, realistically, quickly. In 2021, Italian study, another double-blinded randomized trial, 101 women undergoing IVF, these were not PCOS women. They were treated either with a prenatal vitamin that included 150 milligrams of your esvera tral or plain folic acid for 90 days prior to their egg retrieval. The esvera tral group had an increased number of eggs and better quality eggs and better fertilization rates, but again, no change, no reduction in pregnancy rates. The third study, - Are you studying gonna highlight something? 90 days everybody, there's that preconception. We always say 100 days because of that whole follicular genesis, but remember, it wasn't just a week before their IVF, it was 90 days. So when you're doing acupuncture, laser, diet, all the supplements, everything you're doing, you do wanna give yourself some time. We always call it the 100 day preconception window. Here, the study was for 90 days. - Yeah, we can. - But again, improved higher number of quality of eggs, better fertilization rates, and there was not a decrease in pregnancy rates. So again, showing no harm. - The third study, 2024, Journal of Avarian Research, another double blinded randomized trial, placebo control, 56 women, 800 milligrams of Resvera Troll versus placebo for 60 days prior to IVF. Again, no reduction in pregnancy rates, and finally, a fourth study, published Italian study, published in 2024, Journal of Avarian Research. Again, this was a single blinded randomized trial with 70 women undergoing IVF. Same product, prenatal vitamin with 150 milligrams of Resvera Troll versus placebo for 90 days. There were a bunch of positive findings, but including a reduced need for gonatotropins. In other words, their stem cycle took less gonatotropins, but no change, no reduction in pregnancy rates. So the take home here is at the four prospective trials that have been published in the last five years, have not shown any reduction in pregnancy rates from use of Resvera Troll. Okay, so real quick, let's just talk about terrestrial being because it's another still being in the same family as Resvera Troll. So we consider it sort of an analog, meaning it's chemically similar to Resvera Troll, but it has better absorption and it really doesn't undergo much of a first pass effect. So it doesn't get broken down. The same way that Resvera Troll does, get broken down in the liver. Terrestrial being is naturally found in blueberries and peanuts and grapes, and it very politely increases two in one activity. And remind us of two in one, we like the certain one being higher activity because that is really better. You know, it's the activity and a quality too, right? And a quality as well. Yep. So the point is that by decreasing the first pass effect, you don't get those metabolites. And so you reduce the risk of having what we call off target effects. You're going to get primarily focus on certain two in one activity here. Very safe, Terrestrial being has been used and doses up to 250 milligrams a day in randomized trials with no really serious adverse effects or side effects. Okay. And your NAD support product, or Sterial still being, you said up to 250 safe, yours has 100 milligrams. 100 milligrams exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So this is a study was published six months ago. And incredibly, this is the same group from Japan that published the 2019 retrospective study. It's the same OB/GYN department in, I'm sorry, in Japan. And they looked at Terrestrial being in aging mice. Okay. And so what was in aging mouse? It was, I think it was even 47 or 40 week old female mouse. So you might say, what's the equivalency? And this is getting to the question that you posed a few minutes ago. Reproductively speaking, a 47 week old mouse is roughly equivalent to a woman who's in a 40 to 45 year old range in terms of reproductive function. At 47 weeks, female mice, they still cycle, but it's often irregularly, they have markedly reduced ovulation rates, lower egg quality, higher risk of anuploiding, meaning the abnormal chromosome content in the egg that they produce with mitochondrial dysfunction and they have a reduction in litter size and implantation success. Okay. So this was a really clever study. What they did was they took my mice and they subwomen with Terrestrial being for either one week, six weeks, or 22 weeks. And when did they start these mice? They started them either one week before 47 weeks, six weeks before 47 weeks, meaning starting at 41 weeks of life, or 22 weeks. So that was the long term. These were mice that started like when they were 21 weeks old, or I'm sorry, 25 weeks old and they took 22 weeks of Terrestrial being and then they looked at all of these outcomes when these, all of these mice were 47 weeks old. So here's what it showed. This is really a clever study, which is exciting. Okay. This graph right here, the gray bar, these are the young control mice. These are mice that are like eight, 10 weeks old. The mice become fertile at like six weeks. So these are the number of eggs that get opulated by young mice. Okay. The very dark bar here, these are 47 week old mice that had gotten no Terrestrial being. And then the three bars next to it, this is one week of Terrestrial being. The next bar is six weeks of Terrestrial being. And then the final bar is 22 weeks of Terrestrial being. And so what you can see is that the longer these mice were given Terrestrial being, the better their number of regulated eggs became at 47 weeks. The next outcome was implantation rate. Okay. Once again, the gray bar all the way to the left, these are young control mice. They have excellent implantation compared to the next bar, the black bar here, which is 47 week old mice. Okay. And you can see that at 47 weeks, the implantation rate is down to 25% compared to over 80% in the young mice. But then when you start giving them Terrestrial being, either for one week, six weeks or 22 weeks, you significantly improve implantation rate. In the visual here, the 22 weeks are equivalent to the young control group. Oh, yeah, it is. Absolutely. It basically restored implantation to the same level as the young control group. This is the miscarriage rate. And young controls have about a 50% miscarriage rate, the 47 week old mice that got no Terrestrial being, it was over 80%. And then one week, six weeks or 22 weeks of Terrestrial being, you see a gradual reduction to the point where at 22 weeks, your miscarriage rate is at or below what it is for young controls. And finally, of course, I just want to go back to the miscarriage rate. When you said 22 weeks, that was 22 weeks of taking the Terrestrial being. Correct. That would be sort of like a woman starting to take Terrestrial being at the age of like 25 and continuing it till she was like 40. Okay, that's a long period of exposure. Mice only lived for two years, right? And typically by 18 months, mice have stopped ovulating completely. The last graph on the right here, which is arguably the most important one is the live offspring rate. Okay. You look at the first bar, gray controls compared to the second bar, which is the 47 week old mice without any Terrestrial being a significant drop off in terms of the live offspring rate. But then with one week, six week or 22 weeks of Terrestrial being, you basically see at six weeks of Terrestrial being, you're essentially restoring the live birth rate to that of a young mouse. You know, this is pretty exciting and compelling data. The same group in Japan is in the middle of a study. I think they more or less try to, not they obviously can't do a 22 week study with women, but they're doing a human study with Terrestrial being alone in women undergoing IVF. And hopefully we'll see the results of that sometime in the, in the next year or so. So that's, that's what I want you to share. Yeah, I appreciate the deep dive. And again, I want to remind the listeners that there's another episode with Dr. Mark Ratner, where we're talking about egg quality and NAD support. And he talks about the, at their logics, that what they're using for their, they call it OVA NAD+. And they have NR in it and Terrestrial being in it. And that's how the discussion happened about Resveratrol, because it's related to the Resveratrol. And we had this discussion about implantation. And in live, we were searching, as you heard me say, the beginning and after he said, I'm going to do a deep dive. And then we had some correspondence. And he says, you know what? That was 2019. That was one paper that's probably not a great paper. It was just what was out there. Understandably, white people would react that way. But he goes, but we have new research. And the one he just talked about was 2025, right? So he goes, we got a lot more newer research. So let's look at the current research. He sent it to me. And I said, well, let's get on.
and talk about it. So here we're talking. So kind of takeaways in this idea, Resvera Troll not. It's shown so much benefit for a quality and a training and pregnancy rates. And it's not even the best absorbed. The Thera still being is there a lot of besides the one you showed in 2025. Do we have many mice or human trials on that one yet on that that form? So Thera still being has been studied not in reproductive health, but in the health span type of blood pressure, peripheral vascular, you know, peripheral circulation type of studies, in combination with nicotine on my ribosite. So yeah, but there there are no other, trying to remember if there's any other mouse studies, you've Thera still being. But it has been studied, but not so much maybe in the form of reproductive health, but on a cellular level, which is what we're always looking at. And then if I could summarize what you said and please correct, but the studies that you've shared so far that I got a chance to review, we're seeing improvements in egg quality, improvements in embryo quality, and also trending in increase in implantation. And then some of the studies you showed in the mice, live birth rate. Absolutely. And so at this stage, you're not seeing an issue with Resvera Troll or Thera still being around implantation because a lot of people will stop it, but you're not seeing that as a legitimate at this point in time based on the research you're looking at. I would say that's an accurate summary. Exactly. You know, also you can always talk to your health care provider. Remember this is educational. Dr. Mark is a doctor. He's just not your doctor. Well put. Very well put. So I was going to say also is that in a lot of fertility practices, these days, many practices had moved to a freeze them all approach, meaning they're going to do your egg retrieval. They're going to Xe, the eggs, they're going to basically then let them the embryos go out to blast. They made a PGD if there's any concerns about the genetic quality of the embryos. And it'll freeze those embryos. So that's what they say, freeze them all. Okay. They freeze them all. And then they let the woman recover from the whole stim cycle. And then a few weeks down the road, they will go ahead and do the embryo transfer. And so in those instances, if there's any doubt or concern, you would potentially stop the. And because at that point, your eggs have been retreated, your embryos have grown. And so there's really no benefit in continuing something like over NAD. The bottom line is if there's still any concern on any listeners part, and there's going to be a delay between the Xe, the retrieval and Xe and then the embryo transfer. You simply just stop. You go to NAD. You know, the thing I'm thinking about is you talked about implantation failure and certain one, right? And so I'm just thinking, no, those that have implantation does really like what else, maybe. Absolutely. If you've had recurrent implantation failure, this is something that you definitely want to be focused on. There's no question about it. The other question that's unanswered that we really don't unfortunately have studies that are comprehensive enough to answer. This question is how long if you if you stay on something like all the NAD for 90 days, 120 days, and then you stop it. How long does the benefit in terms of certain one levels in the endometrium? How long does that persist? Okay. Does it go away two days after you stop this element? Or does it persist for two weeks or two months? We just don't know the answer to that question. And so in the episode before on NAD support, we talk about other ways to raise your one. So that's in there in passing when I was doing prep for our call, like in a subtle system, one of my favorite supplements. It's been shown to help with certain one and we've seen that in other studies with miscarriage and IVF diet lifestyle acupuncture low level laser therapy. Lots of ways to support that equality and you and receptivity. And you burn what's that? I think burberry with burberry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's lots again, it's not like it's what's the mechanism? What is it trying to do? And again, if you can get rid of the noise, so inflammation, oxidative stress, increased blood flow, the cells begin to thrive. And you see all these other markers rise that you want to see in a healthy cell, including the egg cell or a uterine cell. So if you're looking for more information, you can contact us at Accu balance by the way. I set up discovery calls twice a week. They kind of put in my schedule where I can talk to people. So if you have questions, let us know. Thera logics is a company that we're talking with here today. Dr. Mark Ratner and they have several fertility supplements for men and women and one of them being for NAD support, where they have. I'm Stero Silbean in their product. So check them out as well. Dr. Mark, I enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you very much for sending all that research over. I appreciate it. And always always always looking to learn. There's always something to learn right. Thank you for having me. All right. Take good care. Thank you for spending this time with us on the Coherence Code podcast. I'm Dr. Lauren Brown and I will see you next week for another conversation on Coherence and Healing. If this conversation resonated with you, please like, subscribe or follow the show and also share it with someone who might benefit from it as well. Remember to take a moment to breathe, reflect and stay connected. Welcome to the Coherence Code podcast.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
A 2019 retrospective study suggested resveratrol reduced pregnancy rates by 43% and increased miscarriage risk, but it had significant confounding variables (e.g., older age, lower AMH, higher FSH).
Four subsequent prospective, randomized studies—controlling for confounders—showed resveratrol improved egg/embryo quality without reducing pregnancy rates; trends actually favored improved pregnancy rates, though not statistically significant.
Resveratrol activates SIRT1, an enzyme crucial for ovarian reserve, egg quality, and uterine receptivity (endometrial decidualization). Low SIRT1 is linked to diminished ovarian reserve and recurrent implantation failure.
Resveratrol has poor absorption and undergoes extensive first-pass metabolism (only ~1% reaches bloodstream as active compound), which may limit its effectiveness.
The original 2019 study’s findings are now considered potentially misleading, as newer evidence indicates resveratrol does not harm implantation and may benefit fertility.
Summary:
This podcast episode debunks the widespread belief that resveratrol harms implantation during IVF. 5 times higher miscarriage risk in those taking 200 mg of resveratrol. However, the resveratrol group was significantly older, had lower AMH, higher FSH, and used more egg donors—all factors that independently worsen outcomes.
The study did not control for these confounders or disclose the resveratrol formulation or duration of use. Since then, four prospective, randomized trials (on PCOS and general IVF populations) have shown resveratrol improves egg and embryo quality without reducing pregnancy rates. In fact, three of these trials found a trend toward higher pregnancy rates, though not statistically significant due to small sample sizes.
The mechanism involves resveratrol’s activation of SIRT1, a sirtuin enzyme that supports ovarian reserve, egg quality, and uterine receptivity. Low SIRT1 is linked to diminished ovarian reserve and recurrent implantation failure. Despite resveratrol’s poor bioavailability (only ~1% reaches the bloodstream), its metabolites retain biological activity.
The host and guest argue that the 2019 study’s flaws have led to an unwarranted fear of resveratrol, potentially depriving patients of its benefits. They caution against relying on retrospective data and emphasize the importance of prospective, controlled evidence in fertility treatment.
FAQs
People worry resveratrol may impact implantation, so they avoid it after ovulation or around embryo transfer. However, it is often used before ovulation or egg retrieval for egg quality.
It was a retrospective study of about 3,000 women, where 100 took 200 mg of resveratrol daily and showed a 43% reduction in pregnancy rates and increased miscarriage risk. However, the resveratrol group was older and had poorer ovarian reserve, making results unreliable.
SIRT1 is an enzyme that regulates cellular metabolism and is crucial for egg quality and uterine receptivity. Low SIRT1 levels are linked to diminished ovarian reserve and recurrent implantation failure.
Resveratrol is a stilbenoid that can increase SIRT1 activity, potentially improving egg quality and endometrial development. However, it has poor absorption, with only about 1% reaching the bloodstream as active resveratrol.
Four randomized prospective studies found that resveratrol improved egg and embryo quality without reducing pregnancy rates. Some trends showed improved pregnancy rates, but they were not statistically significant due to small sample sizes.
The study was retrospective and had confounding variables, such as the resveratrol group being older and having lower ovarian reserve. This likely biased results, while newer prospective studies contradict the finding of harm.
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