NATURAL FERTILITY

Who not loves Coffee, tea or other caffeinated beverages? It is an inseparable part of our everyday routine; and the tempting flavours, tastes often makes it difficult to resist them. Similarly, many women across the world consume several caffeinated beverages whether they are desiring to conceive or pregnant. Surprisingly, Finland has the highest coffee consumption of 12.0/kg/person/year1.
But do this really affect? There has been number of opinions on this. However, given the growing concern of subfecundity and infertility in public health makes us to think about this.
On an average, a cup of coffee contains about 100mg of caffeine, but it can change depending on type of coffee beans used and how the coffee is prepared.
According to food standards Australia and New Zealand2, here is the caffeine content of some food and drinks –

Food	Caffeine content
Espresso	145 mg/50 mL cup
Formulated caffeinated beverages or ‘ Energy’ Drinks	80 mg/250 mL can
Instant coffee (1 teaspoon/cup)	80 mg/250 mL cup
Black tea	50 mg/250 mL cup
Coca Cola	48.75 mg/375 mL can
Milk chocolate	10 mg/50g bar

In the human body, caffeine affects the various physiological processes. It alters the blood levels of catecholamines and increases intracellular concentration of cyclic AMP. It is believed to affect reproductive system through changes in endogenous hormone levels that in turn effects on ovarian function/s1. A study conducted from 2005 – 2007 in United Sates has found numerous associations between caffeine intake and reproductive hormone levels3. The reason stated behind this is the common metabolism pathway of caffeine and estradiol (reproductive hormone). These both are metabolized by the hepatic enzyme CYP1A, so possibly this pathway can lead caffeine to interfere with estradiol levels. Also, another responsible factor is the increased affinity of compounds such as isoflavonoids, (which are numerously present in coffee) for oestrogen receptors. Consequently, change/s in hormone levels might impact on the menstrual cycle. However, according to the studies published in Journal of Caffeine Research in 2011 states no effect of caffeine intake on men and women receiving fertility treatment/s4, whereas some studies has seen the caffeine intake association on hCG and oestrogen5. Considering this, there is still a need for further studies to investigate the caffeine consumption and natural fertility.

 

 

REFERENCES:
1-Lyngsø, J., Ramlau-Hansen, C. H., Bay, B., Ingerslev, H. J., Hulman, A., & Kesmodel, U. S. (2017). Association between coffee or caffeine consumption and fecundity and fertility: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis. Clinical epidemiology, 9, 699–719. doi:10.2147/CLEP.S146496

2-Food standards Australia and New Zealand (2019). Caffeine. Retrieved from http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/generalissues/Pages/Caffeine.aspx

3–Schliep, K. C., Schisterman, E. F., Mumford, S. L., Pollack, A. Z., Zhang, C., Ye, A., … & Wactawski-Wende, J. (2012). Caffeinated beverage intake and reproductive hormones among premenopausal women in the BioCycle Study. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 95(2), 488–497. doi:10.3945/ajcn.111.021287

4- Choi, J. H., Ryan, L. M., Cramer, D. W., Hornstein, M. D., & Missmer, S. A. (2011). Effects of caffeine consumption by women and men on the outcome of in vitro fertilization. Journal of caffeine research, 1(1), 29-34.

5- Lawson, C. C., LeMasters, G. K., Levin, L. S., & Liu, J. H. (2002). Pregnancy hormone metabolite patterns, pregnancy symptoms, and coffee consumption. American journal of epidemiology, 156(5), 428-437.