PCOS Diet Book

How you can use the nutritional approach to deal with polycystic ovary syndrome

Colette Harris, Theresa Cheung

• Editorial: Thorsons
• Año: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780007386215
• Categoría: Medicine
• Categoría: General Health

The nutritional answer for all women sufferers of polycystic ovary syndrome, a condition which affects one in ten women

Part One

NUTRITIONAL HEALING FOR PCOS – LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS

1

Why Food is so Important for Women with PCOS

There’s no denying that food is important. It gives you the energy you need to get through the day, tantalizes you with enjoyable tastes and feeds your body with the essential goodness it needs to work properly.

Study after study proves that good nutrition is the foundation of good health, and the ideal way to stay healthy and fit – whether you have PCOS or not. Everyone should try to eat more fruit and vegetables, reduce their fat intake, eat less high-sugar and high-salt foods and steer clear of the dessert trolley in restaurants. But once you are diagnosed with PCOS and you enter the ‘no woman’s land’ where no one is quite sure what the condition is, what causes it and what is the right way to cure it (see Appendix), the one thing that has been proven time and time again is that a healthy diet is of enormous value.

Food can play an important medical role in helping to deal with PCOS. Many of the symptoms – from weight problems, skin condition and energy levels to menstrual patterns, acne and excess facial and body hair – can all be improved by eating the right foods and, more importantly, by avoiding those which aren’t going to be helpful. With this book you’ll learn how to design a diet that can help you restore blood-sugar levels, balance your hormones, improve energy levels, lose weight and address any PCOS symptoms you may have.

So why is food such a powerful tool when you have PCOS? Why is a healthy diet actually the first essential step – in combination with exercise – to managing the condition, keeping the symptoms at bay and enhancing the effects of any medication you decide to take?

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a condition caused by hormonal imbalance and insulin resistance which leads to symptoms such as weight gain, excess body hair, acne and irregular or absent periods. (For a fuller description of PCOS as a medical condition, read Appendix.)

THE INSULIN LINK

The first reason food is so important for PCOS is its direct impact on our hormonal system. All the food we eat evokes a hormonal response in our bodies. Since PCOS is a health condition linked with hormonal imbalances and – as the latest research suggests – insulin resistance¹ (a precursor state to diabetes), food may well be the cheapest and most effective medicine available.

Many women with PCOS have high levels of insulin in their blood, a condition called hyperinsulinism. Insulin is a peptide hormone (a small protein made from a string of amino acids) made by the pancreas. It controls blood-sugar levels by allowing the body’s cells to take up and use glucose (sugar) for energy.

Normally when a meal is eaten, the pancreas releases insulin into the bloodstream to encourage the body’s cells to store away or use the energy released from the meal.

If the body’s cells don’t respond to the insulin, they are described as ‘insulin resistant’ – ‘hard of hearing’ to insulin’s message. To make the cells hear the message, the body has to turn up the volume by increasing the amount of insulin the pancreas makes for a given amount of glucose in the blood.

The problem with high levels of insulin is that they stimulate the ovaries to produce large amounts of male hormones known as androgens, of which testosterone is the most powerful and well known. Excess androgens are thought to stop the ovaries releasing an egg, causing irregular or absent periods – one of the most common symptoms of PCOS. High testosterone levels in women also cause acne, male-pattern baldness and excess hair growth. Last, but not least, it is the insulin problem, combined with high levels of androgen, which puts women with PCOS at increased risk of diabetes as well as heart disease.

You can eat in a way that helps to reduce insulin resistance and make your body’s cells more responsive again. The health benefits of a diabetes diet to regulate blood-sugar levels are well known. When you have diabetes, your main concern is always how what you eat affects your blood-sugar and insulin levels. Since insulin resistance and excess androgen are strongly linked to PCOS, the key to treating or avoiding PCOS through nutrition is to achieve balanced blood-sugar levels while nourishing your body in such a way that it can maintain an appropriate balance of hormones.

Changing my diet changed my life. It took being diagnosed with PCOS for me to fully appreciate the incredible impact food can have on my health and my symptoms. I’ve really learned the hard way that you are what you eat.

Samantha, 36

Once I started to make the connection between the food I was eating and my symptoms, I saw a remarkable improvement in my symptoms. I lost weight and I lost the cravings I had when my blood sugar dropped. Best of all, I got my energy back.

Diana, 40

EATING TO HELP WEIGHT CONTROL

A second reason food can be a powerful tool for managing PCOS is its role in weight control. How much you weigh and the amount of body fat you have are two of the most important factors in determining how severe your symptoms of PCOS are. Repeated studies show that losing weight can result in improvements.² Many of us with PCOS know only too well that this can be really difficult (more on that in a moment), but weight loss – if you are presently overweight – can really help.

Research shows that overweight women with PCOS have more fertility problems than lean women with PCOS.³ Overweight women with PCOS who diet and lose weight find that their testosterone levels fall and PCOS symptoms diminish. The weight loss doesn’t have to be dramatic, either. Some women lost just a few pounds, others lost much more. In both cases weight loss lead to remarkable improvements in fertility: 82 per cent of the women who were not previously ovulating ovulated, with a number of successful pregnancies, even though these women had had long-standing histories of infertility.

No one really knows why PCOS responds so well to weight loss. It may be linked with the fact that overweight women (without PCOS) can dramatically increase their fertility by losing weight.⁴ It may also be that weight loss lowers insulin levels, which in turn reduces the ovaries’ production of testosterone. When you gain weight, levels of insulin and testosterone increase; the hormonal chaos this creates can make symptoms of PCOS worse. It could also be because fat itself gives out more oestrogen, adding to the hormonal imbalance.

Whatever the reason, avoiding anything that can trigger weight gain, insulin resistance and an overproduction of male hormones is important in helping to manage PCOS symptoms.

In addition to a reduction in severity of symptoms, there is another reason why weight loss is a really positive step for overweight women with PCOS. If you have PCOS you are more likely than those without to have weight-management problems. Research shows that obesity is four times more likely in women who have PCOS and irregular periods than those without.⁵ The tendency in women with PCOS is to put on weight around the waist rather than the hips – making for an apple shape as opposed to a pear shape.⁶ In a recent review, PCOS expert Professor Gabor T Kovacs from Monash Medical School, Box Hill Hospital, Melbourne, Australia cites studies that confirm that ‘Women with PCOS appear to remain centrally obese when approaching the menopause.’⁷

Gaining weight around the middle is associated with a higher risk of poor health according to a 25-year study at Gothenburg University in Sweden. No one is really sure why being an ‘apple’ carries with it more health risks than being a pear, but it may be due to the way the body processes fat stored in different parts of the body. Fat around the tummy is constantly being broken down and circulated around the body, while fat around the bottom is not. Higher levels of circulating fat increase the risk of heart disease and narrowing of the arteries. Abdominal fat can also put pressure on internal organs such as the heart.

With insulin resistance and excess weight already putting a strain on the heart, the fat-distribution problem is another incentive for keeping to a healthy weight if you have PCOS.

So is losing weight the answer? Unfortunately it isn’t that simple.

THE PCOS METABOLISM – WHY DIET...