Infertility can sometimes still be somewhat of a taboo topic, but it’s far from rare.
According to the CDC, about one out of every eight women have difficulty conceiving or carrying a pregnancy to term
But struggling with fertility issues is hard.
You want to be a parent – and you’ll be a great one – but it feels like the odds are against you.
This may feel completely out of your control, but…
There are ways to improve your chances of conception and a healthy pregnancy.
Keep reading for two simple ways to boost your fertility. Even better, they both work for women and men… giving you double the chance of building your family together.
Quick Answer: Two often-overlooked factors are linked to reproductive health in both women and men: the balance of the gut microbiome and vitamin K2. A balanced gut microbiome, where beneficial probiotics outnumber pathogens, supports nutrient production like folate, helps keep reproductive hormones in healthy balance, and supports a balanced immune response. Vitamin K2 (menaquinone) activates proteins involved in hormone production and regulation, which play a role in reproductive health for both sexes. Supporting the gut with a spore-based probiotic that reaches the gut alive, plus adequate vitamin K2-7, is a structure and function approach to overall reproductive wellness, not a treatment for infertility.
What Causes Fertility Issues?
Fertility issues affect millions of women and men, with causes ranging from hormone imbalances and inflammation to ovulation problems and chronic conditions. Many of these causes trace back to two common factors: an imbalanced gut microbiome or low levels of vitamin K2.
Infertility affects millions of families every year. In the U.S. alone, around 10% of women and more than 9% of men deal with this heart-wrenching issue.
The leading causes of infertility in women include:
- Hormone imbalances
- Systemic inflammation
- Ovulation problems caused by conditions like PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome)
- Blocked fallopian tubes, which can be caused by endometriosis or PID (pelvic inflammatory disease
- Underlying chronic conditions such as thyroid disease and celiac disease
For men, the main causes include:
- Low testosterone levels
- Inability to produce enough – or any – sperm
- Slow-moving sperm
- Immature sperm
- Inflammatory conditions
- Chronic conditions that can affect sperm production and behavior
And while these causes seem unrelated, most of them can be connected back to either:
An imbalanced gut microbiome...
– or –
Low levels of a vitamin you may not even realize you need.
How Does Gut Balance Support Fertility?
A balanced gut microbiome, where probiotics outnumber pathogens, supports reproductive health by producing nutrients like folate, helping keep hormones in healthy balance, and supporting a balanced immune response. The gut also influences the balance of the reproductive tract microbiome.
Your gut microbiome contains trillions of bacteria, both beneficial probiotics and harmful pathogens. When your gut is in healthy balance – meaning probiotics outnumber pathogens – it contributes to your good health in hundreds of significant ways. That includes encouraging fertility in men and women… and successful pregnancies.
Here are just some of the ways the probiotic bacteria in your gut microbiome support fertility:
- Producing essential nutrients like B vitamins – including folate – essential for fertility and healthy pregnancies
- Keeping reproductive hormone levels in healthy balance
- Helping your immune system keep inflammation under control
Plus, your gut microbiome influences the balance of bacteria in your reproductive tract microbiome.
Research shows that pathogen overgrowth in the reproductive microbiome can disrupt fertility and conception. And those pathogens often get their start in an unbalanced gut.
Unfortunately, it’s pretty easy to knock your gut microbiome out of balance – a condition called dysbiosis – where pathogens outnumber probiotics... And put your fertility in jeopardy.
How Does Dysbiosis Affect Fertility?
Dysbiosis is an imbalance where harmful bacteria overgrow in the gut, and research has linked it with disruptions to reproductive health in both men and women. Restoring gut balance is the first step many people take to support their reproductive wellness.
It doesn’t take much to cause dysbiosis. A single course of antibiotics… a viral infection… a few days of unhealthy eating… Any of those things can lead to dysbiosis, and they’re far from the only potential causes.
Once your gut microbiome falls out of balance, the overgrowth of harmful bacteria can impair your fertility in several ways:
- Pathogens like pseudomonas and prevotella have been linked to low quality sperm
- Dysbiosis has been linked with IVF failure
- E. coli, commonly found in dysbiosis, interferes with fertility in men and women
- Dysbiosis has been strongly linked with PCOS, a leading cause of infertility
- Dysbiosis alters production of an enzyme called B-glucuronidase that affects circulating estrogen levels, leading to fertility problems
So to support your optimal fertility, you first need to restore balance in your gut microbiome.
Luckily, you can rebalance your gut microbiome quickly and easily with highly effective spore probiotics. Spore probiotics increase and support a diverse population of probiotic bacteria in your gut… and that healthy gut can help promote fertility.
| A balanced gut microbiome | Vitamin K2-7 | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Beneficial probiotics outnumbering pathogens in the gut | An essential vitamin (menaquinone) that activates key proteins |
| How it supports reproductive health | Supports nutrient production, hormone balance, and a balanced immune response | Activates proteins involved in hormone production and regulation |
| Works for | Women and men | Women and men |
| How to support it | A spore-based probiotic that reaches the gut alive | A pharmaceutical-grade K2-7 supplement with absorption co-factors |
And that’s not the only step you can take to improve your odds…
How Does Vitamin K2 Support Fertility?
Vitamin K2 (menaquinone) activates proteins the body cannot turn on without it, including ones involved in hormone production and regulation. Through that role, K2 supports reproductive health in both women and men.
A lot of recent infertility research has focused on the gut microbiome, but there’s another important – and little known – factor: Vitamin K2.
Vitamin K2 doesn’t get a lot of attention. You may not see it on nutrition labels or in multivitamin supplements. But it plays a huge role in your overall health, and that includes your fertility.
This essential vitamin (also called menaquinone) activates important proteins in your body – In fact, they can’t turn on without it.
Through that protein activation, Vitamin K2 affects everything from strong bones to healthy circulation to hormone production and regulation.
New research shows that vitamin K2-7, the most potent and active form of K2, has beneficial effects on women with PCOS… including hormones that affect their fertility.
Vitamin K2 also plays a key role in male fertility. Osteocalcin, one of the proteins that K2 turns on, affects testosterone and sperm production.
Other K2-dependent proteins, such as MGP (matrix Gla protein) help sperm mature so they can fertilize eggs.
Frequently Asked Questions About Gut Health and Fertility
How is the gut microbiome related to fertility?
A balanced gut microbiome supports nutrient production like folate, helps keep reproductive hormones in healthy balance, and supports a balanced immune response. The gut also influences the balance of bacteria in the reproductive tract microbiome.
What is dysbiosis?
Dysbiosis is an imbalance in the gut microbiome where harmful pathogens outnumber beneficial probiotics. It can be triggered by things like a course of antibiotics, infection, or a stretch of unhealthy eating.
What does vitamin K2 do?
Vitamin K2 (menaquinone) activates important proteins in the body that cannot turn on without it. Through that activation it supports bone strength, healthy circulation, and hormone production and regulation.
Do these factors apply to men as well as women?
Yes. Both gut microbiome balance and vitamin K2 are relevant to reproductive health in men and women, since both influence hormone balance and other body systems involved in fertility.
What type of probiotic reaches the gut alive?
Spore-based Bacillus probiotics are protected by a natural shell that helps them survive stomach acid and reach the gut intact, where they support a diverse, balanced microbiome.
Support Healthy Fertility with Just Thrive
Give your body the support it needs for healthy fertility:
- A well-balanced gut microbiome full of beneficial probiotic bacteria and
- Sufficient supplies of vitamin K2-7, the key to activating important proteins
Just Thrive Probiotic contains four clinically studied strains of spore probiotics. These spore probiotics effectively encourage other beneficial bacteria to flourish for a healthy, diverse, well-balanced gut microbiome.
Just Thrive Vitamin K2-7 supplies the recommended daily dose of pharmaceutical grade vitamin K2-7, along with its crucial co-factors to maximize absorption.
Just Thrive Probiotic and Just Thrive Vitamin K2-7 truly deliver… And can help bring you the results you’re after. Add them into your daily routine today.
