Does osteopathic treatment influence the hormone level of hyperandrogenaemic infertile women?
Item
- Title
- Does osteopathic treatment influence the hormone level of hyperandrogenaemic infertile women?
- Author(s)
- Heim Sabine
- Abstract
- Backround: In Europe about 14% of the couples have difficulties to conceive. In about 25% thereason for infertility is found in the hormonal system. A main pathology of the female hormonalsystem is hyperandrogenaemia. On the one hand, an androgen excess leads to distortions of themenstrual cycle, oligo-/amenorrhoea and anovulation. On the other hand women suffer from theapparent external changes due to hyperandrogenaemia: hirsutism, acne, alopecia and android fatdistribution.Research question: Does osteopathic treatment influence the hormone level ofhyperandrogenaemic infertile women?Study design: with-in subject designMethods: A pilot study comprising 10 test persons was conceptualised, but only a case series of3 subjects could be gathered. Appropriated and reasonable in- and exclusion criteria were applied.Each woman got 6 treatments every 2 weeks. Blood samples (testosterone, LH, FSH, TSH) weretaken before, during and after treatment including an observation period of at least one monthduring which no treatment occurred. Additional questionnaires were filled in by the subjectsbefore and after the treatment period.Results: The testosterone level of two women deduced to a normal value. The one of the thirdwoman remained unimproved, but she became pregnant after 4 treatments. Of note, this womancould not be considered as infertile referring to the definition of the WHO (“Infertility: failure toconceive after at least one year of unprotected coitus”). The LH-FSH-ratio was normal (<2) throughout allmeasurements in two patients. Only in subject 3 the LH-FSH-ratio was abnormally high (3.4),and normalised after three treatments and remained normal after further three treatments. Itshould be noted that the same patient had shown normal LH-FSH-ratio two years before. TSHvalues were normal in all subjects at the beginning of the study, suggesting normal thyroidfunctioning.Discussion: Due to the problem of the recruitment of infertile hyperandrogenaemic women,only this small number of 3 test persons could be recruited. None of these women withpathological elevated testosterone level was infertile.Blood measuring should have included the SHBG level (sex hormone binding globulin) in orderto estimate the free testosterone level as only the unbound free testosterone can exert ahyperandrogenaemic effect.Conclusion: The results of these three cases after osteopathic treatment do not allow anystatement on the effectiveness of osteopathic treatment on the hormone level ofhyperandrogenaemic women. Further studies are needed to be conducted on a large scale. Thesestudies should be proceed in two steps: preferably first including hyperandrogenaemic womenand afterwards hyperandrogenaemic and infertile women. If once it is proven that osteopathictreatment reduces testosterone levels, infertile hyperandrogenaemic women will be recruitedmore easily.Key words: osteopathic treatment, infertility, hyperandrogenaemia, hirsutism, polycystic ovarysyndrome (PCOS)
- presented at
- Wiener Schule für Osteopathie
- Date Accepted
- 0
- Date Submitted
- 1.2.2008 00:00:00
- Type
- osteo_thesis
- Language
- English
- Submitted by:
- 62
- Pub-Identifier
- 13867
- Inst-Identifier
- 781
- Keywords
- Infertility,Hormone
- Recommended
- 0
- Medium
- HeimSabine1.pdf
- Item sets
- Thesis
- Media
- HeimSabine1.pdf
Heim Sabine, “Does osteopathic treatment influence the hormone level of hyperandrogenaemic infertile women?”, Osteopathic Research Web, accessed May 15, 2024, https://www.osteopathicresearch.org/s/orw/item/2956