When you're dealing with something as chronic and serious as PCOS, you can get focused on what is the perfect food, the perfect meal, the perfect diet…and if it's not perfect…don't bother.
That, in the end, may be your perfect downfall.
Consider two studies, both done with nuts.
In the first one, subjects were divided into two groups. One was, in addition to their regular diet, given only 31 grams' fat worth of walnuts, the other, a similar volume of almonds.
Walnuts decreased low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, almonds did, but not to the same degree.
Walnuts increased insulin response during OGTT by 26% (P < 0.02).
Walnuts decreased hemoglobin A1c, almonds did not.
Walnuts increased sex hormone-binding globulin
Almonds reduced free androgen index
Betcha thought till I got to that last part that I was going to nix almonds, didntcha? Nope.
The message here is not that almonds are bad and walnuts are good, but rather that walnuts and almonds both have benefit to your health, but in different ways. In fact, the name of this study is Differential effects of walnuts vs almonds on improving metabolic and endocrine parameters in PCOS, NOT Exclusively superior effect of walnuts compared to almonds on metabolic parameters in PCOS.
Let's look at a second study, using people with metabolic syndrome.
Fifty subjects were given 30 g/day of raw nuts (15 g walnuts, 7.5 g almonds and 7.5 g hazelnuts), or no nuts. Compared to the first study, I profiled, where no weight change occurred, in this study, there was a moderate weight loss experienced in the half of the group eating mixed nuts. LDL cholesterol decreased, as did fasting insulin and insulin resistance.
So just because when all you're eating is almonds and almonds don't improve insulin function the way walnuts do, it doesn't mean that you can't eat almonds. If you eat the two together, you can get the benefit of both. No single nut will give you a perfect hormone profile, but every single nut on the tree stands to benefit you in one way or another.
So stop paralyzing yourself out of eating foods you enjoy because they're not absolutely stand alone perfect…and mix it up a bit…literally!
Kalgaonkar S, Almario RU, Gurusinghe D, Garamendi EM, Buchan W, Kim K, Karakas SE. Differential effects of walnuts vs almonds on improving metabolic and endocrine parameters in PCOS. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2011 Mar;65(3):386-93. Epub 2010 Dec 15
Casas-Agustench P, López-Uriarte P, Bulló M, Ros E, Cabré-Vila JJ, Salas-Salvadó J. Effects of one serving of mixed nuts on serum lipids, insulin resistance and inflammatory markers in patients with the metabolic syndrome. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2011 Feb;21(2):126-35. Epub 2009 Dec 22.