Endometriosis: tackling pain and subfertility

If you’re a woman living with endometriosis, the chances are you’ll be coping with chronic pain, and you may be facing fertility problems too. Here we look at a new overview of Cochrane systematic reviews, which brings together the best available evidence on treatments for these two devastating aspects of endometriosis.

No good evidence that antioxidants will help you get pregnant

It’s Monday morning and I have just the thing to wake you up. It’s a three word combo: antioxidants + subfertility + evidence. Yes I was interested too. We so often hear claims for health benefits of antioxidant supplements (cranberry capsules, green tea, bee spit and so on and so on) and there’s a huge market for them amongst women who are trying to get pregnant, particularly for the increasing number who are having difficulty conceiving, now thought to be around a quarter of couples. Many of the antioxidant supplements taken in the hope of improving fertility are unregulated and readily available to buy. But is there any evidence that antioxidants benefit woman trying to conceive and do we know if there are risks attached?