The Hemp Connection + women's health

I am choosing to view this study as an illustration of why inCYST needs to exist…otherwise, I'd be way too crabby

For some reason, I have been placed on the mailing list for a fertility researcher in the UK who is doing some interesting work looking at how fertility doctors conduct their treatments around the world. I actually tried to answer his survey, but since none of the choices available to me had anything to do with changing diet and lifestyle, I was not allowed to complete it.

That is something I find very interesting, that it would not even occur to a fertility specialist to consider the nutritional status of the client and the nutritional interventions provided clients as important variables to consider. Dr. Balen, if you ever wish to consider those factors, now you know where I am.: )

Anyway, I thought the readers of this blog would find some of the results of this study to be interesting. I'll put my commentaries in italics.

This is a summary of 179,300 IVF treatments conducted in 262 fertility centers on every continent where there is a fertility center…meaning Antarctica was not on the list.

1. 73.3% of these cases were assessed for impaired glucose tolerance. That means that 26.67%, or 47,694 women, were not.
--I would be interested to see the geographic distribution of these answers. Several years ago, I moderated a listserve in Spanish for women with PCOS and it was rare in that group to hear of women being treated for insulin resistance. I actually had to go on strike and refuse to give out any more information until the women in the group who had not been evaluated, got the evaluation. About three months later, we had about 6 pregnant women amongst us.: )
--Not sure why, since PCOS has such a strong connection to insulin resistance and it is the number one cause of infertility, this assessment simply is not a universal precaution?

2. 61.3% of the physicians who chose to assess for impaired glucose intolerance were only doing so in obese patients.
--Here we go again, the invisible lean cyster. If up to 70% of women with PCOS are NOT obese, consider the number of infertility cases that are made more complicated than they need to be, simply because of a misperception of what PCOS has to"look like" in order to be taken seriously.

3. 69% of the physicians surveyed, in their PCOS patients, considered clomiphene citrate to be the first line of treatment.
--I would love to know how they would have answered this if they had been given the option of nutrition/lifestyle/sleep hygiene consultation had been an option to answer.

4. Cutoffs for treatment based on BMI:
30% would not treat if BMI was greater than 30
33% would not treat if BMI was greater than 35
20% would not treat if BMI was greater than 40
6% would not treat if BMI was greater than 45
--Which has me wondering, again, why nutrition/lifestyle/sleep hygiene consultations are not considered the absolute essential first line of treatment.

So lean women, apparently, even though their BMI's would be considered appropriate by these practitioners, would not be given the assessment that would help them get the proper treatment.

And obese women, apparently, are not given any direction regarding what to do to bring their BMI into a workable range.

If you're still wondering why your patients with PCOS can be so angry, skeptical, and emotional, maybe you would have better success with an accounting career.

Imagine how much more successful my colleagues in these 262 treatment centers would be if they partnered with professionals who know how to do something about those quandaries.

We'd love to help you improve on those statistics.

The invitation is open.

Source: PCOS – Definition, Diagnosis and Treatment, a survey compiled by Prof. Adam Balen, Leeds Centre for Reproductive Medicine, Seacroft Hospital, Leeds, U.K


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I am choosing to view this study as an illustration of why inCYST needs to exist…otherwise, I'd be way too crabby + women's health