Hi, this is Dr Rebecca from Conquer Your PCOS Naturally. Today I wanted to talk about food…
Whether or not you’re trying to boost your fertility, reduce acne, reduce excessive hair growth, lose weight or regain a menstrual cycle, no matter what it is that you’re struggling with, PCOS, food forms a foundational place, so you need to get this right. And online, looking around, there are many different approaches and a wide range of advice. Within this sphere, different experts may give what seems like contradictory advice…
Therefore, it is essential to understand why they recommend specific actions so that you can make the best decision for yourself. Then, try it and see how you go with it; you’ll know pretty soon whether that’s the right approach.
So, regardless of who you speak to, low glycaemic load and low glycaemic index across the board are absolutely essential.
We know that inflammation is higher in PCOS, so your doctor can test for things like CRP. There has been a recent study that actually shows this may be more closely linked to and indicative of PCOS than even insulin resistance…
Speaking of insulin resistance, sugar-rich foods can undoubtedly contribute to it, as can foods that lack sufficient magnesium, chromium, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can reduce our insulin’s ability to function effectively. So, sugar is the first thing you really need to eliminate. Any refined sugar. Whether it comes in a pastry, a cereal, a pasta, or supposedly healthy foods, it’s not healthy for us, unfortunately. We can’t handle a lot of glucose or a lot of sugar.
The second thing is dairy. This is really quite controversial. I recommend against dairy. The main reason is that I read a book about six years ago, called The Devil in the Milk. It discusses the A1 versus A2 casein, and research has shown that A1 casein, a protein, is linked to Type 1 diabetes, heart disease, and inflammation. I don’t believe that dairy’s the best option for folks with PCOS.
We also know that dairy can come with toxins, herbicides, and the packaging materials it’s contained in. So it’s packaged up in a container that contains BPA, which then affects our testosterone levels. I believe that avoiding dairy is the best approach. We also know that this doesn’t actually increase our risk of osteoporosis. There are plenty of other places to get your calcium, for example, from.
I also don’t recommend gluten. I know it sounds like this is getting really stressful. But gluten, obviously, if you’re a coeliac, it increases the inflammation in your body. So when you look inside your gut, you should have dips and hills, kind of like this and that area, if you like, is one cell thickness, and the good stuff that you need to get from your gut needs to cross across this thin membrane.
With coeliac disease, these areas can become inflamed, resulting in a lack of space for proper nutrient exchange. That’s not very good because if you end up with nutrition deficiencies, like women have been shown to commonly have a magnesium deficiency in PCOS, we’re not going to be able to heal ourselves and function properly. After all, every process that happens in your body requires nutrients. Whether it’s down in your gut area or whether it’s in your brain or whether it’s anywhere in between.
Another problem is that if we have gluten, we tend not to be able to uptake our zinc in the first part of our intestine. Zinc is involved in everything from brain function to women with PCOS, who we know are more at risk of mental health challenges like depression, anxiety, and zinc is key. Zinc is also really important for fertility. It’s also crucial for maintaining gut function.
Apart from that, gluten often comes in foods that are high in sugar. So, if you’re looking to go on a low- or preferably no-gluten diet, I definitely recommend staying away from or being very careful of foods that claim to be gluten-free, because often they’re gluten-free, but they’re really high in sugar. So, if you’re looking at pasta, bread, or anything similar and you flip to the back, you’ll sometimes see that it has around 71 grams of sugar. If that’s the case, put it back down, opt for real foods. You can now make pasta with zucchini; there are so many different options that you don’t need to include this protein in your diet, and I would recommend against it.
So there are three of the top foods I would avoid, I do avoid, and I recommend that women with PCOS avoid. Sometimes that’s enough to trigger a massive change in a woman’s body. I remember one lady who’d been trying to conceive for 11 years, and we got her off gluten, we got her on omega-3s, and we dealt with her stress, and she got pregnant within a couple of months. This material is powerful, even though it may not seem so at first glance. So, be careful about what you eat, and if you have any challenges with this, just let me know, and I might be able to help you find a better option.
From PCOS to perfect health, with love,
Dr. Rebecca Harwin
The PCOS Expert
Chiropractor & Bestselling Author of
Conquer Your PCOS Naturally
www.ConquerYourPCOSNaturally.com
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