If cutting carbs was the only dietary strategy needed to help PCOS, this blog wouldn't exist. There are clearly thousands of women, based on the traffic statistics for this blog, who've tried that approach without success.
One of the food groups that gets cut out of the diet when we worry too much about carbohydrates, is fruit. And fruits are just loaded with antioxidants that are showing potential to help balance our biochemistry.
Resveratrol is one of those anti-oxidants. It is a compound well recognized for its benefits in reducing cancer risk, inflammation, cardiovascular disease, blood clotting, and other aging-related issues. It is actually a compound that some plants have the ability to produce to fight off pathogens that threaten their own health, that turns out to have the same ability in humans.
A recent study specifically done with PCOS suggests that it has potential for women with this syndrome.
In rats, resveratrol was shown to reduce the excess growth of ovarian tissue. It also inhibited the tendency for insulin to promote this type of excess tissue growth.
Where do you get this great stuff?
1. Red grapes, blueberries, bilberries, and cranberries. Bilberry extract is most commonly found in supplement form. The other fruits are often taken out of a low-carbohydrate diet. Don't make this mistake!
2. Red wine. For those of you who are trying to conceive, please exercise caution with this choice. It's best to pursue the nonalcoholic options provided here. But if you are not in that category, consider enjoying a glass of red wine with dinner tonight! Spanish red wines and New York pinot noirs are your best option, they've been found to have the highest resveratrol concentrations.
3. Peanuts and peanut butter. I love this one. Sometimes we think nutrition has to be complicated…but a PB and grape J sandwich is a perfect PCOS-friendly lunch!
4. Resveratrol supplements. These are primarily made from extracts of the kojo-kon root. Not that supplementation is bad, but I've been around long enough to see that when you isolate a compound from its natural source, you often miss out on other factors and compounds that either help make that compound more effective, or that may be the really important compound in the first place. So I'd encourage the other choices over supplementing. Another consideration that is important is potential conception. I just don't like to recommend supplements to anyone who might become pregnant when I don't know for sure if they have more potential to be helpful or harmful.
5. Dark chocolate and non-dutched cocoa powder. So now if anyone, anyone at all, questions why that really, really high-cacao bittersweet chocolate jumped from the shelf in the Trader Joe's checkout line into your grocery bag…just tell them "the inCYST blog made me do it".
Just a note, in addition to pure chocolate squares, think hot chocolate and mole sauce!
One important point I need to make here is that when resveratrol-containing foods are included in a balanced diet, they can have benefit. It's important to not eliminate entire categories of food. Resveratrol, however, has the ability to affect estrogen levels, in both directions. It's best not to overdose on the supplement because it's"good". Balance is always the goal in PCOS.
Wong DH, Villanueva JA, Cress AB, Duleba AJ. Effects of resveratrol on proliferation and apoptosis in rat ovarian theca-interstitial cells. Mol Hum Reprod. 2010 Jan 12. [Epub ahead of print]