Helix Clinic blog

It takes two to make a baby, and if a couple is infertile the problem is often due to a combination of male and female factors.

Three key measures for sperm health are sperm count (quantity), sperm motility and sperm morphology. The correct medical name for low sperm count is oligospermia, and there are some key nutritional guidelines that can help to improve this condition.

Most people have heard about ‘free radicals’, chemical fragments that contribute to the toxicity of various drugs, aging, and the development of cancer. What one might not know is that free radicals tend to be abundant in the semen of 40% of infertile men. In fact, free radical, or oxidative damage to sperm is one of the major causes of oligospermia.

So how to reduce damage from free radicals? This is where anti-oxidants can work their magic, and some of the best anti-oxidants are vitamin C (found in citrus fruits), beta-carotene (found in red, orange and yellow vegetables) and vitamin E (found in nuts and green leafy veg).

Smoking reduces vitamin C throughout the body - this is one reason why smokers are more likely to have low sperm counts, but non-smokers will benefit from increased vitamin C as much as smokers.

Vitamin E is the main anti-oxidant in sperm membranes, and can enhance the ability of the sperm to fertilize an egg in vitro.

In addition to good levels of antioxidants, it’s important to have the right kind of fats and oils, so saturated or hydrogenated fats should be avoided and replaced with the good Omegas (3, 6 and 9) found in oily fish and seeds like flax, pumpkin and sunflower.

Finally, the most important trace mineral for sperm production is zinc. Zinc deficiency decreases testosterone as well as sperm counts, and studies have shown that men with oligospermia tend to have lower levels of zinc.  15mg a day should do the job, and zinc can be found in high quantities in oysters and other shellfish, chickpeas, baked beans and pumpkin seeds.

Tags: antioxidants, fertility, infertility, oligospermia, omega oils, vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc

As we mentioned yesterday,  insomnia often responds well to acupuncture. However, chronic insomnia can sometimes be trickier to shift. In these cases it can be useful to try a natural supplement in addition to acupuncture treatment.

When thinking about supplements for insomia, it is useful to keep in mind the basic brain chemistry that leads to a good night’s sleep. Serotonin is the neurotransmitter that initiates sleep, and its precursor is the amino acid L-tryptophan. The reason that taking a direct serotonin supplement wouldn’t help is that once absorbed into the bloodstream, it wouldn’t be able to pass through the blood-brain barrier and get to where it’s needed. However, L-tryptophan and its metabolite 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), from which serotonin is synthesized, can and do cross the blood-brain barrier, so are suitable as dietary supplements that could help in the synthesis of serotonin.

5-HTP can be bought as a direct supplement, but in addition certain foods have a higher L-tryptophan content so can be useful to eat later in the day. Avocados, bananas and wheat germ are particularly good, so instead of eating a late dinner high in protein (which tends to stimulate and wake up the brain), why not try a bowl of sweet potato soup, with a lettuce and avocado salad, followed by a banana (or a banana smoothie made with added wheat germ).

Another remedy that could be worth trying is the one described on the BBC’s new series ‘Grow Your Own Drugs’. The presenter made a small pillow stuffed with dried hops, and tested it out on a couple of people who had suffered from chronic insomnia. They found good results when the small hop pillow was placed under their usual pillow at night. It’s an unconventional idea, but if it works it has to be better than going for the sleeping pills.

Tags: 5HTP, avocados, bananas, hops, sleep

Mmm, a whole month dedicated to lovely sleep. It’s wonderful when you get it, but unfortunate that so many people have problems sleeping, and attempts to improve it can often be frustrating and slow to take effect. Why is this?

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, imbalances can be categorised as full or deficient conditions. Full conditions often come on quickly and generally have stronger symptoms, whereas deficient conditions tend to develop slowly over time so are generally more chronic, and often the symptoms are less intense (but no less annoying).

A simple example of a full condition affecting sleep would be disturbed sleep after an alcohol enhanced evening. You can feel hot, restless and sweaty - the alcohol creates hot and damp energy in the liver that keeps you awake. But although the symptoms come on quick, they can be cleared relatively easily. Similarly if someone has a lot of physical stress and tension stored in the body that is affecting sleep, this can be relieved quite quickly using acupuncture.

A common deficient condition that can affect sleep is when there is a deficiency in the body’s yin energy, that reservoir of cool and calm energy. Classic symptoms that would suggest yin energy is low include waking in the middle of the night, or waking feeling thirsty, or experiencing night sweats. In this case it generally takes longer to change the sleep patterns because yin deficiency often takes longer to build up and manifest.

We have made a few posts before on how to build yin energy, either through yin building activities such as acupuncture, deep breathing, yoga, tai ji or meditation, or through eating yin-building foods, or through being in a yin-nourishing environment. If you are having trouble sleeping and the usual remedies are not having an obvious effect, maybe your yin energy is what needs a boost.

Tags: insomnia, sleep, yin energy

Regular readers of our blog will have noticed a ’stop smoking’ theme over the past couple of weeks. We’ve given advice on how shorter, more frequent acupuncture treatments can help beat cigarette cravings, and how important it is to get into the right mindset before giving up smoking. We’ve looked at the benefits that can be gained within minutes of stopping smoking. And yesterday we speculated on the role that a good posture could play in helping to anchor good feelings to your future non-smoking self.

Next week is national no-smoking day so if you are a smoker, this is a great time of year to think about quitting for good. We appreciate how hard it can be to give up, so we’ve decided to run a competition with a prize of 3 weeks acupuncture treatment and support targeted to help someone start a healthier lifestyle without tobacco.

To enter our competition, simply fill in our short smoking survey. We’ll be picking a winner at random on national no smoking day so your treatment can start straight away. Good luck!

Tags: competition, no smoking day, smoking

Following on from  yesterday’s post about the connection between childhood asthma and watching TV, we thought of an interesting way to use posture to help someone who is trying to stop smoking.

Many smokers have a similar posture where the upper spine is collapsed (like the children mentioned yesterday). Smoking is inherently unpleasant to the lungs, so part of this contraction happens over time as a defensive postural reaction to the smoke.

If you are a smoker, take a brief moment to assess your own posture to see if this holds for you. If it does, and if you are currently trying to give up smoking, you can use the following exercise as a way to condition yourself away from cigarettes.

Take a few minutes to close your eyes and imagine yourself as a healthy non-smoker sometime in the future, standing in a beautiful natural environment where the air is clean and clear. Picture yourself with a naturally straight upper spine, so that your lungs are fully open to the clean air and you are able to breathe deeply and well. Physically allow your posture to adjust at this point so that your spine is straight and you are breathing deeply. Continue to imagine yourself immersed in this scene, and become aware of how good you feel about the fact that you are no longer a smoker. Stay aware of your good posture, and allow yourself to feel free of all past cravings for cigarettes. Notice how good you feel confident in the knowledge that you are now healthy and smoke-free.

Enjoy this visualisation for a few minutes and then slowly come back to yourself. With this exercise, you will have effectively anchored a postural state to a state where cravings don’t bother you any more. This means that the next time you experience a cigarette craving, simply adjust your posture, make your upper spine straight so that your chest and lungs feel open, and imagine yourself back in that natural scene, enjoying the clean air with no more cravings. If you visualised the scene well enough, you should find your cravings reduce and eventually disappear by using the power of your posture and the power of your mind!

Tags: cravings, posture, smoking, visualisation