Epilepsy Drugs Could Cause Decrease in Fertility

Antiepileptic drugs could lower fertility and cause other sexual disorders according to new research conducted by researchers in at the National Center for Epilepsy, published in the October issue of Epilepsia.

The study looked at the effects of discontinuing the use of two common drugs to treat epilepsy; carbamazepine and valproate, two popular antiepileptic drugs.

Carbamazepine is a mood stabilizing drug, as well as an anticonvulsant. It can also be used to treat bipolar disorder. Less commonly, it has been used in the treatment of ADD, ADHD, and schizophrenia.

Valproate, the other epilepsy drug included within the study has been used as an anticonvulsant and a mood stabilizing drug. It can be used to treat migraine headaches, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. In epilepsy treatment it is often used for preventing grand mal and absense seizures.

Both drugs have been previously associated with pregnancy risks. Some known risks include a greater chance of autism or a lower IQ of the child.

The researchers in this study by the National Center for Epilepsy found that using these epilepsy drugs created decreased fertility as well as increasing the amount of reproductive endocrine disorders for both women and men.

However, the study also found that the increases in reproductive endocrine disorders and low fertility were not permanent. Once patients stopped using carbamazepine and valproate, even after many years of use, their hormone levels returned to normal and their rate of risk lowered to pretreatment levels.

The researchers found that after the patient stopped using epilepsy drugs the body's sexual hormone levels of extradiol decreases and the serum testosterone increased. Both of these changes increase sexual function in women and men.

Furthermore, women who stopped using epilepsy drugs saw their estrogen levels normalize. They were also likely to lose the weight they had gained during treatment that is sometimes a side effect of some epilepsy drugs. Both of these things lead to better fertility rates.

"These findings provide further evidence of the potentially negative effects of epilepsy treatment on reproductive endocrine functions in men and women, but they also show that some of these changes may be reversible," says Morten I. Lossius, author of the study and chief physician in the Department for Children and Youth, Division for Clinical Neuroscience, at the National Centre for Epilepsy in Norway.

However, discontinuing the use of epilepsy drugs should only be done under the supervision, and at the advice, of a physician.

Sources:

Epilepsia, "Epilepsy Drugs May Cause Sexual Disorders" Blackwell Publishing