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Nijmegen (pte024/07.04.2005/11:15) - Smoking can make a woman years older in reproductive terms, and significantly reduce her chances of successful IVF treatment, Dutch researchers claim. As the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk reports, the researchers looked at 8,457 women aged 20 to 40 who had had IVF treatment. They found that a 30-year-old non-smoker had the same chance of conceiving as a 20-year-old smoker. Couples that have IVF treatment are told that smoking can cut success rates. However, the researchers did not compare all age groups and warned that they could not say if smoking always adds 10 years to a woman's reproductive age, whatever age she actually is.
The Dutch researchers, from 12 hospitals around Holland, looked at data for 8,457 women who had undergone one cycle of IVF treatment between 1983 and 1995. All had been trying to become pregnant for at least a year. Over 40 per cent of the women were smokers at the time of undergoing their first attempt at IVF and more than 7 per cent were clinically obese. The scientists divided the women into four groups, depending on the cause of each couple's fertility problems - male fertility disorder, fallopian tube problems, other clinical explanations - such as polycystic ovaries or endometriosis - or unexplained fertility problems, known as subfertility.
A total of 1,828 people were being treated for unexplained subfertility. The overall live birth rate per cycle was 15.2 per cent. Older women had lower IVF success rates, regardless of the cause of their fertility problems. Overall, the live birth rate for smokers was 28 per cent lower than non-smokers. Among women with unexplained subfertility, the live birth rate was a third lower for smokers, at 13 per cent compared to 20 per cent for non-smokers. The miscarriage risk was a fifth higher for smokers in this group compared to non-smokers, at 21.4 per cent compared to 16.4 per cent.
"Smoking has a devastating impact," said Didi Braat from Radbound University http://www.ru.nl , who worked on the study. "This also indicates that subfertile couples may help their chances of successful treatment by lifestyle changes," she added. "As the effects of smoking and being overweight were greatest among women with unexplained subfertility, these results suggest that this group in particular may be able to improve the outcome of subfertility treatment by quitting smoking and losing weight."
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