Essential
- Programs for weight loss before IVF were associated with an increase in pregnancies resulting from an assistance without assistance in obese patients.
- The effect on pregnancies resulting only from IVF was uncertain.
- “The data concerning the association between weight loss interventions before IVF and living births were uncertain.”
“We do not know if weight loss before in vitro fertilization (IVF) improves reproductive results in patients with obesity.” This is the observation made by researchers from the University of Oxford (United Kingdom). To have a clear heart, they carried out a study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. As part of the work, the team examined 12 randomized controlled trials of 1,921 people, carried out between 1980 and 2025. In detail, these were carried out with women aged at least 18 years old, with a RMI of 27 kg/m² or more, wishing to do an IVF with or without intracytoplasmic injection of sperm for infertility.
Food, physical activity: a program to lose weight before IVF
During research, the obese participants benefited from interventions aimed at losing weight. Interventions included hypocaloric plans, a physical exercise program accompanied by healthy food advice, and pharmacotherapy accompanied by diet and physical activity advice. Subsequently, the authors were interested in the number of volunteers having fallen pregnant without IVF (pregnancy not assisted), with IVF (pregnancy induced by treatment), the total number (pregnancy not assisted and induced by treatment) and the number of those giving birth to a living child.
More obese women fell pregnant without IVF thanks to weight loss
According to the results, losing weight before in vitro fertilization was linked to higher rates of non -assisted pregnancies. “The data were not conclusive regarding the effect of weight loss interventions on pregnancies induced by processing. The data concerning the association between weight loss interventions before IVF and living births were uncertain, although a moderate certainty was established as to the absence of association with false layers.”
Scientists believe that other high -quality clinical trials testing different weight loss interventions, in particular those known to cause the most important weight losses (for example, total replacement programs for hypocaloric food), should be carried out to confirm these results.