Excessive Coffee Intake Affects Fertility Treatments: Study

A study claims that the amount of coffee consumed by a woman is directly proportional to the success and failure of their infertility treatments.

The Danish Researchers who conducted the study claim that, drinking more than five cups of coffee a day may cuts in half a woman's chance of successful in vitro fertilization. Regular intake of excessive coffee is similar to the negative effects of smoking because this level of caffeine consumption reduces the live birth rate following in vitro fertilization by 40 percent.

In order to conduct a research the Danish researchers analyzed more than 4000 women who underwent IVF. At the start of the treatment and before each treatment cycle the women reported how much coffee they drank per day. They took into account age, smoking, and alcohol habits, weight and other factors that may affect the success of fertility treatments. It is noticed that pregnancy rate is reduced by 50 percent and live birth by 40 percent, in case of drinking five or more cups of coffee in a day.

Dr Ulrik Schioler Kesmodel from Denmark's Aarhus University Hospital fertility clinic said "Although we were not surprised that coffee consumption appears to affect pregnancy rates in IVF, we were surprised at the magnitude of the effect".

The study's findings were expected to be presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Istanbul, Turkey.