The Hemp Connection:
peanuts

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]

Gotta love the Fresh and Easy demos. Yesterday Steven had a great sample of individually packed Mountain Mix.

As you can see, it contains pumpkin seeds (pepitas), dried cranberries, almonds, cashews, peanuts, raisins, and a few chocolate chips.

The mix comes in individually packaged 210 calorie portions.

I know, I know, you're reading this thinking,"I can make that myself, no need to buy!" Yes, you can, and I encourage you to get in the habit. This is one of those items you might want to consider having on hand for those times when your day is busy, you need to throw something in your purse or daypack, and time in the kitchen simply isn't going to go on the list. It's great for traveling, to pull out of your gym bag after a workout, or to get in on a morning when you just didn't get around to eating breakfast.

And…if you're someone for whom portion sizes with foods like trail mix are an issue, the prepackaged presentation is a subtle mindfulness reminder that you're done with the portion you aim to respect.

The more you prepare yourself for success, the more likely success is what will come knocking at your door.

Way back in the early 80's when I was a brand-new dietitian, we were taught to teach our clients to avoid nuts because of their high fat content. Today, nuts are the new health food. But research is often written up in ways that place a specific nut in the spotlight, without a big-picture perspective.

For example: Walnuts are routinely listed as"the" nut to eat because of their high omega-3 content. Most people do not realize that the omega-6 content of walnuts is so high that it is mathematically impossible to improve your dietary omega-6 to omega-3 ratio by eating only walnuts and no other nuts. Does that mean you shouldn't eat walnuts? Absolutely not! In all honesty, it is mathematically impossible to improve your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio with any nut. It is, however, yet another example of the imbalances we create when we focus on a handful of"super foods" and don't pursue variety.

Being the statistics nerd that I am, I spent the other afternoon looking at 10 different nuts in several different ways. I came to some interesting conclusions. Let me work you through what I did. I don't mean to be tedious, I just want to be transparent so anyone else can work through the analysis just as I did. If you're just looking for what nuts are best to eat,simply skip to the bottom of this post.

1. Analysis one: Best anti-inflammatory index (potential for a food to prevent or promote inflammation, as indexed at http://www.nutritiondata.com/), ranked in order of best to worst:
macadamia hazelnut almond cashew peanut pistachio Brazil pecan walnut pine
2. Analysis two: Omega-3 fatty acid content, ranked from highest to lowest per ounce of nuts: walnut pecan pine pistachio macadamia cashew hazelnut Brazil peanut almond Important point of interest: almonds are the only nut that contain absolutely NO omega-3 fatty acids.
3. Analysis 3: Omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, ranked from lowest (most beneficial) to highest (least beneficial) walnut macadamia Brazil pecan cashew pistachio hazelnut pine peanut almond
4. Analysis 4: Total omega-3 and monounsaturated fat content, ranked from highest (most beneficial) to lowest macadamia hazelnut pecan almond cashew brazil peanut pistachio pine walnut
5. Analysis 5: Total saturated fat content, ranked from lowest (most beneficial) to highest walnut almond hazelnut pine pistachio pecan peanut cashew macadamia Brazil
SUMMARY ANALYSIS: In each list, I placed a number"1" next to the top item, and numbered each nut below it in numerical order. Then I added up the scores for each nut based on their rank in each category. The lowest score shows the overall rank. This helps nuts that many not have one outstanding quality still receive a decent ranking--it gets credit, in other words, for being all-around pretty good without being written off for having one quality that is considered"bad" striking it off as"unhealthy". It also keeps a nut with one outstanding quality for getting too much credit when there may be nutritional aspects that truly keep it from being a superfood.
The final rankings, with the most potentially beneficial at the top: macadamia hazelnut walnut pecan cashew almond/pistachio (tied) Brazil/pine (tied) peanut
I guess you could say…just like people, all nuts have their good and not-so-great qualities. By spending too much time with one, you'll miss out on the benefits of the others. Diversify your interests, and you'll get the best benefit.