This is part two of a series I’m doing on infertility and its causes this month, and today, I want to focus on one of the biggest causes of infertility in women: polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).
Infertility in women can be a sign of poor health in general or today, toxicity, such as too much heavy metal or EMF exposure, as we discussed last week.
But one of the biggest causes of infertility in women is a disease which affects 1 in 10 women of childbearing age today, polycystic ovarian syndrome, or PCOS.
What’s important to know is that PCOS is 100% reversible with simple lifestyle and diet modifications – if you catch it before it develops into other issues, such as metabolic syndrome or cardiovascular disease.
See PCOS is actually not only caused by a hormonal imbalance of male and female hormones in women such as estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone –
PCOS is actually tied to ones eating and lifestyle behaviors because – as we now know, insulin resistance and PCOS go hand in hand. In fact, always. Even in thinner women.
In fact, today, PCOS is being called the “cousin” of diabetes.
But what is important to point out here is that even insulin resistance can be reversed if one catches it before it develops into full blown diabetes (and even that can be reversed in its early stages. For more on that, see all my articles on How Not to Be the 1 in 3: Parts 1, 2, and 3.
So let’s talk about this very common disease in women—how to recognize its signs and symptoms and prevent it if you don’t have it—or reverse it for good.
It’s all about eating clean, nutrient dense, and avoiding refined sugars and carbs – just like good health is in general!
What is PCOS?
PCOS is a disease that is caused by a hormonal imbalance between estrogen and progesterone that researchers believe is caused by an excess of androgen hormones, such as testosterone.
This excess of male hormones is the reason that this condition is often associated with more hair on the face and body. It also causes (or is caused by) large chains, or “pearls” of cysts on the ovaries.
In fact, researchers have not yet determined if the hormonal imbalance comes first or the tumors cause the hormonal imbalance. See this article for more on that.
PCOS affects some 8 to 20% of women of child-bearing age and over 50% are never properly diagnosed. This article by the NIH can tell you more about statistics and who is at risk.
It is important to recognize the signs and symptoms of this pervasive disease because if left untreated, PCOS can lead not only to infertility but also increasingly hard to reverse insulin resistance, then diabetes, and the whole deadly cascade of health conditions that follow including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, or even a disease called multiple myeloma, which often begins with diabetes and is aggravated by environmental toxins such as pesticides. See article.
As many women probably know, there is also a strong genetic link for PCOS. Frequently, women diagnosed with the disease had a mother or relative who also had the condition. For more on that, see this fascinating article on the “Genetics of PCOS.” (link)
However, PCOS can affect anyone and, as we’re learning, insulin resistance is more of a risk factor for developing this disease than the genetic factor.
What are the Symptoms of PCOS?
What’s frightening about the symptoms of PCOS is that they are so reminiscent of many other conditions. Depression, mood swings, weight gain, and acne, are often signs of severe PMS, for example.
But the most obvious and early symptom of PCOS is irregular periods. Most symptoms begin soon after the onset of menstruation and the severity of symptoms can vary, ranging from mild to excessive.
Symptoms include
Other symptoms are caused by excess male androgen hormones such as
Other conditions that can develop because of PCOS can also serve as symptoms of it, such as high cholesterol, insulin resistance, and hypertension.
In fact, the symptoms of PCOS often mimic other hormone disorders that cause fatigue, like thyroid diseases/disorders or adrenal fatigue. This is another reason the disease often remains undiagnosed for far too long.
How do You Find Out if You Have PCOS?
It typically takes multiple tests to determine if you have PCOS. What doctors look for, typically, is a high level of androgen hormones, like testosterone and DHEA-S, combined with other symptoms, especially tumors on the cysts—which can be detected via ultrasound.
What Causes PCOS?
Although medical researchers are still struggling to tease out all the causes of this common disease, they do know that certain health factors work together to cause the phenomenon of PCOS, including
This is because there is a strong correlation with excess insulin and PCOS and excess insulin is often caused by decades of poor eating habits, too much refined carbs/sweets, and the development of insulin resistance.
The Evolution of PCOS
Here’s how PCOS seems to operate within the female body as it develops and worsens over time.
Most of the symptoms of PCOS are caused by higher-than-normal levels of certain hormones, called androgens, and lower than normal levels of female hormones, like estrogen or progesterone.
These higher levels of male hormones cause all kinds of actions within the female body that, then, lead to PCOS.
First, the androgen hormones disrupt signals that typically trigger ovulation—so that ovulation in women with PCOS does not occur when and as it should.
Also, the androgens cause the egg-carrying follicles in women to develop fluid-filled cysts within the ovaries that continue to enlarge over time.
Insulin, which is also a hormone, also becomes disrupted.
Researchers are very certain now that insulin resistance DOES CAUSE PCOS, but they aren’t certain which comes first in the series of causes here – do the tumors come first then the disrupted insulin? Do the female and male hormone imbalance cause both the tumors and the problem with managing insulin?
The chicken and egg kind of dilemma with PCOS is still being debated as we speak but . . .
What we do know is that high insulin can cause too much androgen hormone in women, which can then lead to PCOS.
So managing blood sugar, ladies, is key to taking a preventative (or healing, for that matter) approach to PCOS.
In fact, women who are genetically predisposed toward PCOS or whom already have this disease, might definitely want to consider a paleo, keto, or low glycemic diet which will all help prevent insulin resistance and generally keep insulin levels in check.
Other causes that may contribute to or cause PCOS include
How do You Cure PCOS? Or Can You?
Currently you cannot cure PCOS.
However, healthy eating habits and a healthy lifestyle can help you reverse the underlying hormone disorders that cause PCOS and stop PCOS from ever recurring.
Good nutrition and exercise, and being vigilant to spot symptoms, and having frequent exams with a gynecologist or physician, can all help you avoid PCOS altogether and reverse the condition and prevent it from coming back as well.
The Good News: You Can Reverse POCS and Hormonal Imbalance
Because PCOS is chiefly caused by all-around hormonal imbalances from insulin to male and female hormones, here are my recommendations for preventing and reversing PCOS, including eating strategies, supplements, and recommended forms of exercise!
This is the time to do a home and body detox for just about everyone today. We all need to begin using really high-quality home air filters, water filters, and toxin-free products of all kinds to trim our chemical burden for optimal health.
Our world is becoming so deathly toxic, we are seeing rises in infertility, and testing reveals that numerous people test positive for a barrage of toxins and heavy metals such as DDT, BPA, pesticides, mercury, high levels of fluoride, and others.
But what’s worse is not only do we inherit much of these dangerous toxins from our mothers, as they’re passed from their placenta to us via the umbilical cord, we then begin to acquire a huge toxic burden ourselves – and some of us continue to use pesticides, toxin-containing cosmetics and perfumes, food cans lined with strong endocrine disruptors such as BPA and the new synthetics designed to replace it that are just as bad.
All these toxins disrupt the endocrine systems, which can all contribute to the development of to PCOS. So, get the home un-toxic.
Get your yard un-toxic and get your life as free of all these hormone-disrupting chemicals you can.
Pesticides contain such strong hormone disruptors, they turn male frogs female, folks.
They hit us with just the same impact.
We’re all just livin’ things, you know.
What the body cannot detoxify, toxifies, and all those toxins have to pass through vulnerable organs like the liver and kidneys. The rest accumulate in fat tissue, causing continuous damage to brain and body.
Again, create a toxin-free life.
Stress is a powerful hormone disruptor. Just look at how much stress activates adrenaline and cortisol when we’re in fight or flight and you can see why staying in a prolonged or extreme state of stress can cause massive hormone disruption.
Finding ways to manage stress is not just a good idea folks, it’s a MAXIM. I mean, we need our body super-resilient to protect us from toxic damage, or we become even more vulnerable to hormone imbalances, which are aggravated by a toxic body.
Add stress to that mix, though, and we have weakened systems, hormone imbalances, AND a body not equipped to handle the stress of a toxic world on top of all that.
All kinds of diet strategies today have been proven to help reverse insulin resistance. Intermittent fasting is one highly effective way to heal insulin resistance. Eating low carb and / or paleo has also been found to help people keep insulin levels low and in check and reverse insulin resistance which can prevent and reverse PCOS as well.
Overall, eating no refined carbs or sugar, as well as eating a nutrient-dense diet rich in healthy proteins and vegetables is a good prescription for anyone wanting to avoid deadly diseases of all kinds.
Chemical laden foods, sweeteners, and other dietary sources like fast food and packaged/frozen foods are a guaranteed way to create a hormonal imbalance.
Combine poor eating habits like this with a body that has to endure the chronic toxic onslaught of the modern world, and it’s no wonder so many people have hormonal imbalances.
So, you need to eat clean and nutrient dense every day.
Plus, for women with PCOS, you really want to nourish the phase I detox pathways of the liver with all the nutrients and compounds your body needs to flush all hormone-disrupting toxins from the liver fully!
In fact, this is vitally important for you to understand because our Phase I liver pathways need minerals and vitamins in order to detoxify all the environmental contaminants we encounter through diet and just plain breathing the air.
See, the liver relies on an array of nutrients and minerals to do this.
For example, when you eat a toxin that the body cannot recognize, for example, mercury in farmed fish for example, the first way the body attempts to remove the toxin is to try to render it safe to excrete by the kidneys.
The way it does this is kind of like spinning a Rubik’s cube around to make it look different. What the liver does is to take the mercury and pair it with a nutrient or mineral compound, like choline or selenium, for example, to create a new, less harmful chemical that the body will not be harmed by as it processes it, and can then pass it in urine safely.
We need all kinds of nutrients, minerals, vitamins, and trace minerals to give the body the ingredients it needs to perform these kinds of biochemical actions that protect our organs.
This is doubly important for women dealing with hormone imbalances already, as hormone disruptors and estrogen disrupting chemicals like BPA and pesticides lurk everywhere in our food supply and environment today, and we need to help the body flush these out as much as possible.
With PCOS, you don’t want to create further hormone imbalances, as female athletes do when they train really hard.
Perhaps you’re not training strenuously yourself, but if you suffer with adrenal or chronic fatigue or simply aren’t used to exercising, suddenly going out for a jog every day or becoming all exercise-orexic right now are not the choices for you.
You don’t want to create more—in fact—any of stress in the body with PCOS if you can avoid it as, because any kind of stress, physical, mental, or emotional will throw hormones of all kinds completely out of whack.
One reason resistance training can help women with PCOS is because it helps to create more lean muscle mass on the body, which helps enhance insulin sensitivity—which is what we need to enhance to prevent, manage, and reverse PCOS.
I highly advise weight training for women with PCOS, no matter what kind of other moderate cardio you might want to combine and vary it with!
There are some highly effective all natural supplements that can help us to balance hormones such as insulin, estrogen, and testosterone, all of which will help you create hormonal stasis and reverse PCOS.
Magnesium
Many individuals are deficient in magnesium and magnesium is crucial for helping manage both stress and insulin levels. It’s also vital for hormone balance. So a good magnesium supplement is required for women with PCOS. I advise you to try transdermal magnesium patches, especially if you’re currently fighting PCOS. See article
Out-of-balance estrogen/progesterone levels can greatly helped by a good, high quality B6 supplement.
This nutrient can be hard to get enough of in the diet, especially for vegans. Try adding more bananas, grass fed dairy, garlic and grass-fed meats, if you’re not vegetarian of course.
My favorite way to get more B vitamins in the diet that is completely vegan friendly is nutritional yeast, which can give you very high quantities of virtually all the B vitamins in a natural form the body can supremely absorb. See study.
Like choline, selenium is crucial for the detoxification pathways of the liver. It helps the liver to remove toxins, helps boost progesterone, and supports the important corpus luteum, which helps you balance estrogen and progesterone. A win-win for women with PCOS!
Blood sugar stabilizing supplements and compounds
Chromium, apple cider vinegar, and cinnamon are some of the best blood-sugar-stabilizing compounds around. Taking 1 tbsp. of ACV with water before meals, in fact, can prevent blood sugar spikes, even if you’re eating carbs or sugar. Cinnamon and chromium are proven to help manage blood sugar and help make you more insulin sensitive too.
Good luck in healing and preventing PCOS
Be well, be strong, be happy!
Jackson