Not long ago I created a webinar about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. I found a great graphic that explains something most people have not considered when it comes to reproductive hormone health. Many of the hormones that we need for proper function of our reproductive systems (whether we're trying to conceive or slow down aging), are made out of cholesterol. Just look at this picture below!
As you can see, we need a decent supply of cholesterol in the body in order to even make progesterone and estrogen! However, we've become very obsessed with the idea that cholesterol is a"bad" thing. So much so that in 2001 the National Cholesterol Education Program lowered the level of ideal cholesterol so much that the number of people who ideally should be on cholesterol-lowering medications…tripled. This may be more pertinent to women with PCOS, approaching menopause, who are more likely to be placed on statin medications than younger women who are trying to conceive. However, I just wonder, a lot, if it's not really a coincidence that as we focus on cholesterol and getting it out of our bodies, we also seem to be developing more problems related to hormone imbalances…infertility, early menopause, even Alzheimer's, which is starting to be recognized as a consequence of insulin resistance, which is associated with PCOS. Bottom line: Eat well, and be careful of obnoxiously high cholesterol levels, but try to avoid an obsession with a"lower is better" mentality. Cholesterol is an essential compound, and not to be feared.
I'm really big on sleep…and the fact that Americans just don't seem to want to admit that they need it…is a huge part of their problems with weight, hormones, and mood disorders. So over the past 6 months, I've been reading as much as I have time to read, about melatonin, the hormone that makes you sleepy. Turns out it's a huge anti-aging chemical, and if you aren't sleeping enough, it can cause a lot of serious problems.
Here's one interesting issue I ran across that might be of specific interest in PCOS. (I've noticed in the past few years that the number of women with PCOS I've helped, who are on sleep medications, has slowly and steadily been creeping upward.)
OK, keep in mind, this study was done on pigs, but it will give you the general drift.
Embryos (in petri dishes) exposed to melatonin developed more quickly than those without melatonin. And, unlike their non-exposed counterparts, the melatonin embryos also seemed to be protected against heat stress. Too much melatonin affected embryo development as well. So my point is not that you should supplement with melatonin, but that you should keep your own melatonin levels in balance with healthy sleep habits.
Remember, it's not just about getting pregnant. It's about staying pregnant and having a healthy baby. If your sleep habits are"off" now, that may have some important consequences later. And not just to you. One of the most important things you can do to balance your hormones is to develop a habit of adequate sleep and regular sleep hours.
I remember when I worked in the Silicon Valley, as the nutritionist at Apple Computer's corporate headquarters, people would come in to talk about their diet and literally brag about how few hours of sleep they were getting. I don't know where they (we) got this idea that not sleeping is somehow cool, or that it is a sign of a good work ethic, or that we somehow are superior when we don't. The truth is, it's about the absolute worst thing you can do for your health, to not value sleep. (When people would say,"I average 3-4 hours of sleep a night!"…I would think to myself…"Do you always regularly broadcast that you're not good to yourself?")
Just because you're not awake when you're sleeping…doesn't mean nothing important happens while you do it!
Rodriguez-Osorio N, Kim IJ, Wang H, Kaya A, Memili E. Melatonin increases cleavage rate of porcine preimplantation embryos in vitro. J Pineal Res. 2007 Oct;43(3):283-8.
For anyone who is interested in the topic of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, I will be presenting a webinar comparing this treatment to nutritional options.
This webinar will be held on February 23, at 6 PM Eastern time. The cost is $35.
Information can be found at our Facebook page.
You can register at this link.
There is an option to purchase the recorded version of this webinar if you are interested in the information but cannot attend the live presentation.
I've had two different clients share a similar observation in the last couple of weeks, and I thought I'd write about it since it's not uncommon to feel this way in early recovery.
First of all, I want to share with you an article on depression that was recently in the Boston Globe.
This article presents the argument that depression is not about a deficiency of neurotransmitters that need to be balanced with medication, but rather, a condition in which neurons are dying a slow death and gradually losing their function. I've had this premise for awhile; it is the basis of my treatment philosophy for PCOS. Fish oil is the best compound nature has for restoring life to neurons, and when you put it into your diet, the brain begins to function again.
My two clients have both observed that as they began taking fish oil, they felt more alert and their memory and concentration seemed to be better. Signs that Elvis is back in the building!
These two clients also observed, though, that they were feeling more emotional. Not all emotions, especially anger and sadness, are easy to feel. So when you begin to feel these emotions, it can feel like things are getting"worse", not better.
Keep in mind, when neurons are malnourished, that means ALL neurons stop functioning, not just the ones affecting memory. The ones affecting emotion, the ones affecting appetite, and the ones affecting hormones.
If you've had PCOS, your hormones have not been functioning as they should, perhaps for a very long time. And that means you've not had the experience other women have, of fluctuating energy, emotions, you name it. Those fluctuations are normal!
So I often get the question,"What can I do?" The most important advice I can give is, be patient with yourself. Become used to what it means to truly cycle. Get to know what a healthy body feels like. It means it is normal to feel bloated, even constipated, just before your period. Your weight might fluctuate. The cycle should be around 28 days when you're back on track, and every single day within that 28 days may feel different. There may be no such thing as getting on the scale and weighing the same thing every single day.
With regard to your emotions, perhaps as your brain becomes more aware, this is an opportunity to experience what emotions might be about. Emotions are messages from the brain, telling you how you are with regard to balance, and what you need to do to restore balance if it isn't there. Anger is often a clue that a boundary has been violated. Loneliness means you need to seek companionship of some sort. Fear suggests that you need to remove yourself from danger. If they didn't feel uncomfortable, you would not be motivated to engage in behaviors that keep you healthy and safe. So rather than running from emotions, embrace them! They're telling you that your health is returning and things are getting back to normal.
PCOS is so hormone driven that emotions end up on the back burner. Excesses of androgens and stress hormones put anxiety and anger in control. But if you find that these feelings are persistent and do not wane after time, or that they seem to be there even when nothing in your life can explain them, they may be signs of hormone excesses and not really environmentally or event-stimulated emotions. When your hormones have you constantly revved up, it can feel strange to not have that kind of energy rush.
I couldn't figure out why, when I first started recommending yoga to clients, they would come back after one class and tell me they hated it. I figured out eventually, that yoga slowed their bodies down but their heads were still spinning. And being pinned to the floor in a yoga pose while your head is thinking angry thoughts can be a very uncomfortable place to be. Those clients got the same advice I'm giving you. Give the new changes some time. Don't abandon your new lifestyle because it initially feels uncomfortable. It's been a long time since your body has felt normal. Be gentle with your self and get to know/understand that"normal" involves hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly cycles. There is no such thing as being the same weight, temperature, size, or temperament every single minute of every single day.
Our philosophy is a little different than what many physicians will have you do. We're not trying to control your hormones, your weight, or even your diet. We're not trying to force a cycle, a pregnancy, or a clothing size. We're guiding you toward healthy choices that allow your body to be in balance. Sometimes giving up control, and letting the body speak to you instead of the other way around, is the absolute best way to get there.
So if things seem a little chaotic and you feel like you're charting uncharted territory, welcome to the world of female physiology! Ask questions, observe, and embrace the wonderful lesson you're learning, that your body will heal if you let it. There is no such thing as being past the point of no return or"stuck" where you are.
I'm just posting this release verbatim, no need for an editorial.
Public release date: 21-May-2009 http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/hsop-bcu052109.php
Contact: Todd Datz tdatz@hsph.harvard.edu 617-432-3952 Harvard School of Public Health
BPA, chemical used to make plastics, found to leach from polycarbonate drinking bottles into humans
Exposure to BPA may have harmful health effects
Boston, MA — A new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that participants who drank for a week from polycarbonate bottles, the popular, hard-plastic drinking bottles and baby bottles, showed a two-thirds increase in their urine of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA). Exposure to BPA, used in the manufacture of polycarbonate and other plastics, has been shown to interfere with reproductive development in animals and has been linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes in humans. The study is the first to show that drinking from polycarbonate bottles increased the level of urinary BPA, and thus suggests that drinking containers made with BPA release the chemical into the liquid that people drink in sufficient amounts to increase the level of BPA excreted in human urine.
The study appears on the website of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives and is freely available at http://www.ehponline.org/members/2009/0900604/0900604.pdf.
In addition to polycarbonate bottles, which are refillable and a popular container among students, campers and others and are also used as baby bottles, BPA is also found in dentistry composites and sealants and in the lining of aluminum food and beverage cans. (In bottles, polycarbonate can be identified by the recycling number 7.) Numerous studies have shown that it acts as an endocrine-disruptor in animals, including early onset of sexual maturation, altered development and tissue organization of the mammary gland and decreased sperm production in offspring. It may be most harmful in the stages of early development.
"We found that drinking cold liquids from polycarbonate bottles for just one week increased urinary BPA levels by more than two-thirds. If you heat those bottles, as is the case with baby bottles, we would expect the levels to be considerably higher. This would be of concern since infants may be particularly susceptible to BPA's endocrine-disrupting potential," said Karin B. Michels, associate professor of epidemiology at HSPH and Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study.
The researchers, led by first author Janeny Carwile, a doctoral student in the department of epidemiology at HSPH, and Michels, recruited Harvard College students for the study in April 2008. The 77 participants began the study with a seven-day"washout" phase in which they drank all cold beverages from stainless steel bottles in order to minimize BPA exposure. Participants provided urine samples during the washout period. They were then given two polycarbonate bottles and asked to drink all cold beverages from the bottles during the next week; urine samples were also provided during that time.
The results showed that the participants' urinary BPA concentrations increased 69% after drinking from the polycarbonate bottles. (The study authors noted that BPA concentrations in the college population were similar to those reported for the U.S. general population.) Previous studies had found that BPA could leach from polycarbonate bottles into their contents; this study is the first to show a corresponding increase in urinary BPA concentrations in humans.
One of the study's strengths, the authors note, is that the students drank from the bottles in a normal use setting. Additionally, the students did not wash their bottles in dishwashers nor put hot liquids in them; heating has been shown to increase the leaching of BPA from polycarbonate, so BPA levels might have been higher had students drunk hot liquids from the bottles.
Canada banned the use of BPA in polycarbonate baby bottles in 2008 and some polycarbonate bottle manufacturers have voluntarily eliminated BPA from their products. With increasing evidence of the potential harmful effects of BPA in humans, the authors believe further research is needed on the effect of BPA on infants and on reproductive disorders and on breast cancer in adults.
"This study is coming at an important time because many states are deciding whether to ban the use of BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups. While previous studies have demonstrated that BPA is linked to adverse health effects, this study fills in a missing piece of the puzzle—whether or not polycarbonate plastic bottles are an important contributor to the amount of BPA in the body," said Carwile.
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The study was supported by the Harvard University Center for the Environment and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Biological Analysis Core, Department of Environmental Health, HSPH. Carwile was also supported by the Training Program in Environmental Epidemiology.
"Use of Polycarbonate Bottles and Urinary Bisphenol A Concentrations," Jenny L. Carwile, Henry T. Luu, Laura S. Bassett, Daniel A. Driscoll, Caterina Yuan, Janenifer Y. Chang, Xiaoyun Ye, Antonia M. Calafat, Karin B. Michels, Environmental Health Perspectives, online May 12, 2009.
For those of you who do not follow Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh's blog, I wanted to share a really important post. It's about the prevalence of BPA's in our world. BPA's are chemicals that can alter hormone function and therefore, infertility.
This has pertinence to all of you for a couple of inCYST-related reasons.
1. First of all, if you're drinking diet soda thinking it's ok because it's diet, it may not be the obvious that's getting into your body that's causing the problem. If I can't convince you to stop drinking soda, maybe at least I can convince you to look for, purchase, (and therfore create demand for) a less hormone-destructive beverage container.
2. Secondly, the issue of destructive chemicals in our environment is huge. But it seems as though, the huger it gets, the more we seem to want to focus on the minutia of carbohydrates, when to time meals, whether brand"x" breakfast bar is better than brand"y"…ad nausem.
The truth is ladies, one of the reasons you may be forced into a situation where your life has become about minutia is because we as humans have a tendency to stick our head in the sands about big, complex, vague problems it's hard to wrap our brains around, We need to be concerned about the way our chemicals are altering our environment. We need to speak out. I'm appalled at how few people on Facebook even talk about the oil slick…but they all have time to watch the latest Lady Gaga spoof and harvest tomatoes on My Farm. Chemicals aren't going to go away unless we speak up about the fact that we don't want them.
It's unrealistic to ask all of you to wear plastic gloves when you shop so you don't have to touch yours hopping receipts. It IS realistic, however, to ask all of you to take a moment or two out of each day and speak out about something you care about. Plastic, abuse, self-esteem, bullying…if we put our time into that instead of e-poking people we barely know…imagine the world your hormones would have an opportunity to thrive in.
The first post on this topic was very popular. I didn't forget it, I have been busy traveling on behalf of inCYST and haven't had many free, quiet moments to collect my thoughts. They're here today, so I am capitalizing on them to get on with this thread!
Today I want to share some thoughts about estrogen.
As with luteinizing hormone, estrogen levels cycle throughout the month. There is no such thing, really, as a simple"high" or"low" estrogen, it depends on what day in your menstrual cycle you are looking at your estrogen levels. So, as with luteinizing hormone, the goal is to NORMALIZE estrogen levels: to make them high when they should be high, and low when they should be low.
One of the most important, but not frequently discussed aspects of estrogen metabolism to understand, is that we live in an environment that increasingly contains chemicals that interfere with natural estrogen function.
Every hormone in your body comes with a unique shape, designed to allow it to fit only into the receptors made to work with it. So an estrogen molecule won't mistakenly fit in a progesterone molecule, for example. There are many man-made chemicals that are very similar in shape to estrogen. They are so similar to estrogen, that they can fit into the estrogen receptor.
BUT…they are not similar enough that they can fool the receptor into being activated. What happens when your estrogen receptors are filled with inactive estrogen impostors? The body doesn't get the message that there is estrogen in the system, and it starts to make and release more of its own estrogen to make up the (nonexistent) deficiency that it perceives is in need of being corrected.
So your receptors are filled with inactive estrogen, which messes up your reproductive function and your real estrogen, because it is being blocked out of action in those receptors, is available to be active in estrogen-sensitive tissues, which is where some cancers are thought to get their jump start.
Your ultimate goal is not to put more estrogen into your system. Rather, it is to remove the"environmental estrogens" from your body, which gives your own estrogen a fighting chance to work. It's not just about YOUR infertility. Environmental scientists are reporting that other species are also becoming infertile due to the very same chemical influences. (Hence the lizard graphic on this post.) If you want to learn more, here is my favorite website:
As I continue with this series, you will understand why I am explaining all of this. For now, I just want you to understand that hormones are complex, and there are many reasons why they may be out of balance. My personal philosophy is that it is best to identify the source of the imbalance rather than try to force hormones in a direction that may not correct the core problem.
