I have been taught that 50% of what influences PCOS is genetic, 25% is nutrition, and 25% is lifestyle.
I have observed that when a person is told they have a"genetically" influenced issue, they tend to view that as a"get out of jail free" card when it comes to making healthy lifestyle choices. In other words, why should you have to worry about lifestyle if genes have so much control?
It is not that simple.
Yes, DNA programs disease risk. But did you know that nutrition can influence DNA? The foods you eat can influence how your DNA expresses itself. So even though the major things we know how to measure with regards to nutrition and PCOS look to be about 25% of the answer, nutrition has an indirect influence on another 50% of what is going on.
The area of study that looks at the influence of diet on genetics is called nutrigenomics. One example you've seen here in this blog is our caution of excessive chromium use and its potential to cause DNA damage.
Too much of a nutrient, too little of a nutrient, imbalances between nutrients…all can be important influences.
The most important thing to NOT do is stop taking good care of yourself and assuming there is nothing that can be done until genetics researchers discover a cure. Chances are, they're going to still encourage you to make many of the same choices you can make right now to help those genes be healthy.
