As Yahoo News UK reports, the researchers looked at IVF success rates in 154 women who were vitamin D-deficient and compared them to 181 women who were not deficient in the vitamin, and found that the women with sufficient vitamin D levels were twice as likely to have IVF success. And not only that—the women with healthy vitamin D levels were also more likely to have "high-quality embryos."
"Our work is the largest study to date to examine how vitamin D affects fertility in women who are undergoing IVF," one of the study's authors, Alessio Paffoni, MSc, of the Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico in Milan, Italy, said in a statement." He continued, "Although randomized clinical trials are needed to confirm the findings, our results certainly suggest that low levels of vitamin D contribute to infertility."
The researchers defined a healthy or sufficient level of vitamin D as 20 to 30 nanograms per milliliter of blood.