If you're diligent about PCOS news, you probably haven't missed the press release reporting the finding that women with PCOS have 60% higher blood levels of bisphenol-a than other women.
The question is, what can you do with that information? My hunch is that many of you immediately wanted to know where you could get your blood levels tested and what to do if they turned out to be high. I worked much of yesterday trying to put together some answers for you, because it's highly likely that soon there will be people out there marketing solutions to all of you, some of which might be helpful…and others which are more likely to help fatten the other person's wallet than to improve your own personal situation.
The first thing I looked for was whether or not there was any way you could actually have your own blood BPA levels tested. I wrote to the Environmental Working Group, who has done some BPA testing, and who I trust.
Here is their response:
Thank you for your interest in EWG's work. Unfortunately, testing for toxins in the body is an expensive and time consuming endeavor. Some commercial labs will test for certain chemicals (and your physician may be some help here), but the kind of tests we ran for our BodyBurden reports would be almost impossible to procure for the average individual, not to mention cost prohibitive.
We are not associated with any lab in particular, but you might find the study’s methodologies--and what tests were run, and where--helpful: http://archive.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden1/ http://archive.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/
In addition, we do not recommend that individuals seek body burden testing for the chemicals in the Human Toxome Project. These tests rarely provide any concrete information regarding the origin of your condition or the sources of your exposure.
1. Health effects of many of the industrial chemicals at levels found in people are mostly unknown. Most studies measure the toxic effects of these chemicals at high doses in animals. Few studies reveal potential health concerns from the complex, low-dose mixtures found in people.
2. We cannot at this time associate current health problems or predict future health problems from the chemicals that might be in your body. Scientists are only beginning to study the health effects of repeated exposures to trace levels of these chemicals. While studies suggest that some specific chemicals may play a role in certain health problems, risks to an individual are largely unknown. Genetics, timing of exposure, and levels of exposure all may be important.
3. Even if you were to be tested for dozens of chemicals, you would not know the added effect of the hundreds of other industrial chemicals that contaminate the human body at any given moment. The additive effects of the chemical mixtures found in people make understanding the potential health implications of your personal exposures even more complicated.
As an alternative we recommend that you review our site for suggestions of ways to limit your exposure to toxic chemicals, and join us in our fight for more protective policies that limit our exposures to harmful chemicals. Policy measures are the most permanent, cost effective, precautionary and equitable way to protect our health. Thanks again for your interest in our work.
Bottom line: running out and getting yourself tested for your own BPA levels is not a recommended response. Staying apprised and learning how to limit BPA exposure are great preventive strategies.
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 last time I wrote about marijuana it brought enough traffic to this blog with the search words,"PCOS" and"marijuana" I figured the subject should be addressed in more detail.
Did you know that our bodies naturally make their own cannabinoids? They are compounds that are needed for a variety of processes, ranging from appetite to pain sensation to mood to memory.
Cannabis, an external cannabinoid, affects these functions as follows:
1. Interferes with both long and short term memory. If you're smoking pot and experiencing brain fog, there just might be a connection.
2. Increases appetite (like I had to tell you that!) When your internal (endo) cannabinoid system is out of balance, it too affects appetite. Leptin and endocannabinoids antagonize each other, and when the latter levels become higher, obesity is more likely. Just as cannabis intensifies cravings for sweets, so do high levels of endocannabinoids.
3. Affects fertility. In both directions. Cannabinoids can increase or decrease the probability of an embryo implanting in the uterus. My guess would be that if you're a person who is craving sweets and struggling with weight, you layer smoking pot on top of that…you're pushing that baby farther away from reality, rather than in the positive direction.
What is fascinating is that omega-3 fatty acids, the ones you see all the time mentioned in this blog, are crucial for good endocannabinoid function. If you're omega-3 deficienct, you're more likely to make it harder for your body to respond to its own naturally produced cannabinoids. So that craving for pot may have a valid foundation. The problem is, it's not the lack of cannabinoids that's causing the problem. It's that they are there, all dressed up, ready to help regulate memory, mood, appetite, and hormone function, but the body has lost the ability to understand what those chemicals are trying to tell them. Flooding your system with more of those chemicals holds potential to create an even worse imbalance, even worse cravings, a vicious cycle that it can feel impossible to break out of.
In addition, omega-3 fatty acids help to be sure that when it comes to maintaining muscle mass and reducing fat mass, the endocannabinoids push that relationship in the right direction.
Why not try improving how your body uses these chemicals and see if it helps reduce your need for the external stuff?
1. Work really, really hard on getting those omega-6 fatty acids out of the diet. They are likely to be found in baked goods, chips, all the stuff you tend to want to eat when you have the munchies. So it seems like a really important strategy is to not bring your munchie foods into the house. Fill your kitchen with fruits, vegetables, crackers made with olive oil, etc., to turn to while you're transitioning to a better hormone balance. Remember, the oils you want to stay away from begin with the letters"s" and"c"--safflower, sunflower, soybean, sesame, corn, cottonseed. Canola is ok.
2. Get as many omega-3 fatty acids as you can in your diet. If you supplement, start with a dose of 500 mg DHA per day. If, combined with #1, you don't see a change within 2 weeks, add 500 mg more DHA. I've seen some cases where titrating up like that, over time, the end dose was 1000 to 1500 mg per day. Hang in there. If you're diligent, it works. Lafourcade M, Larrieu T, Mato S, Duffaud A, Sepers M, Matias I, De Smedt-Peyrusse V, Labrousse VF, Bretillon L, Matute C, Rodríguez-Puertas R, Layé S, Manzoni OJ. Nutritional omega-3 deficiency abolishes endocannabinoid-mediated neuronal functions. Nat Neurosci. 2011 Mar;14(3):345-50. Epub 2011 Jan 30.
Watkins BA, Hutchins H, Li Y, Seifert MF. The endocannabinoid signaling system: a marriage of PUFA and musculoskeletal health. J Nutr Biochem. 2010 Dec;21(12):1141-52. Epub 2010 Oct 8.
Kirkham TC, Tucci SA. Endocannabinoids in appetite control and the treatment of obesity". CNS Neurol Disord Drug Targets 5 (3): 272–92, 2006.
Das SK, Paria BC, Chakraborty I, Dey SK. Cannabinoid ligand-receptor signaling in the mouse uterus. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 92 (10): 4332–6, 1995.
Paria BC, Das SK, Dey SK. The preimplantation mouse embryo is a target for cannabinoid ligand-receptor signaling. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 92 (21): 9460–4, 1995.
Winter squash is one of those vegetables I didn't learn to like until I was an adult. But now that I've discovered it, boy do I love it! I recently made an Indian squash-lentil stew that was a fabulous way to blend the outgoing flavors of summer with the incoming comfort food season. hinking there are many other adults out there who also had a thing against squash, I thought it would make a fun blog post. I learned new and interesting things pertinent to our insulin-resistant readers.
As with many of the fruits I profiled over the summer, squash isn't bad just because it's starchy. Again, Mother Nature was thoughtful enough to put compounds in squash that help to counteract that carbohydrate. In fact, some of them actually help to improve insulin function and reduce the progression of diabetes. I'm really starting to see, as I research for all of you, that what we were taught long ago, that it was about the carbohydrates no matter what the source, was not correct. When we eat carbohydrates right off of the tree, or right out of the ground, they come packaged in a way we were designed to handle them. It's when we refine the good stuff out of them that our bodies don't do well with them.
One thing to keep in mind, though, is that squash may be one of those vegetables that is extremely important to purchase from an organic farmer. I would have assumed, if asked, that because this vegetable has a skin that you can peel and discard, that it would be safer from pesticides than a lot of other vegetables. However, squash is unique for its tendency to absorb contaminant chemicals such as residual DDT and DDT derivatives from the ground in which it grows. So much so, that farmers often plant squash in between plantings of other crops to pull contaminants out of the soil and improve soil quality.
Just to be safe, be sure anything you purchase in the squash family (summer zucchini, winter squash, pumpkin, any kind of melon) comes from an organic farm, which is less likely to be using chemicals on an ongoing basis that have any need to be removed from the soil.
Please don't let the second half of this post scare you away from squash. My intent was more to motivate you to get to the local farmer's market in search of a big, beautiful butternut and discover how much flavor, color, and nutrition it can add to your fall menus! Here's a recipe for a roasted vegetable medley to get you started, from http://www.allrecipes.com/. Thomas JE, Ou LT, All-Agely A. DDE remediation and degradation. Rev Environ Contam Toxicol. 2008;194:55-69.
Cofield N, Schwab AP and Banks MK. Phytoremediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in soil: part I. Dissipation of target contaminants. International Journal of Phytoremediation. Boca Raton: 2007. Vol. 9, Iss. 4-6; pg. 355-370. 2007. White JC. Inheritance of p,p'-DDE phytoextraction ability in hybridized Cucurbita pepo cultivars. Environ Sci Technol. 2010 Jul 1;44(13):5165-9.
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.
Our blog statistics have shown over time, that we get quite a bit of regular traffic from the other side of the world. I have to admit, my advice is hemisphere-centric, since I've never been south of the Equator. So I invited a friend from Australia, Olwen Anderson, who works with PCOS in her part of the world, to share a little bit of advice. Here's hoping for our Aussie readers, it introduces you to someone close to you who can help you, and that what Olwen has to say, is helpful!
Legumes are a girl’s best friend… when you have PCOS
Olwen Anderson is an Australian Nutritionist-Naturopath who specialises in treatment of hormone imbalances and gut disorders. Her blog contains lots of PCOS-friendly recipes: Visit www.olwenanderson.com.au
Been diagnosed with PCOS? Meet your new nutritional “best friend” – legumes.
When you think about food as medicine, legumes should almost be a compulsory prescription for good health. These amazing little vegetables are packed to the brim with nutrition that can help moderate your hormones. They taste great; and once you learn how to prepare and use them, they will open up a whole new culinary world for you.
Legumes include chick peas (or garbanzo beans), black eyed beans, haricot, lima beans, kidney beans, soy beans and many other dried beans that are a staple food in many countries. In fact, legumes are one of the powerful plant foods common in countries where people routinely live happy, productive lives to 100 plus.
Phytoestrogens and fibre are two outstanding features of legumes that will benefit you. Phytoestrogens are naturally occurring plant chemicals that have a molecular shape similar to estrogen. When digested, they ‘latch on’ to the estrogen receptors of cell membranes, and effectively block real estrogen molecules from connecting with the cell. This means that when you have plenty of the right fibre in your diet, you’re automatically reducing the effects of excess circulating estrogen.
Its good bacteria in your intestines that convert plant phytoestrogens to their active form. These good bacteria feed and breed on soluble and insoluble dietary fibre. Fortunately legumes are packed with fibre, so your intestinal bacteria will love them. When there’s plenty of fibre in your diet, your body produces more sex hormone binding globulin. This transporter molecule travels through your bloodstream, picking up and removing excess hormones, including excessive androgen hormones like testosterone. Exactly what you want to happen in your body.
Even better, legumes are packed with nutrients: Some protein, a little of the good fats, and complex carbohydrates. They’ll take ages to digest, resulting in smoother blood glucose management; and they’re packed with minerals too.
But won’t they make me flatulent?
Many women worry that if they start enjoying legumes, they will become windy. To prevent this, start with small quantities (about one tablespoon) and build up over a few days to half a cup so your intestinal bacteria have a chance to adjust.
It’s easy to incorporate legumes into your diet every day:
- Sprinkle chick peas (garbanzo beans) through your salad
- Enjoy some home made baked beans for breakfast with poached salmon
- Fresh broad beans, steamed and mashed, make a great vegetable side dish
- Include legumes in your stews, casseroles and soups. Like minestrone soup; or lentil stew.
You can buy legumes canned; but the dried variety, cooked, taste so much better. (Also, avoiding canned food helps you avoid suspected endocrine-disrupting chemicals like BPA). Buy dried legumes, soak for a few hours, boil until cooked, (firm but not crisp), then freeze in portion size containers.
I always keep containers of cooked legumes meal-ready in the freezer. Then, if I want a quick meal, I can take one out, stir-fry in a hot pan with garlic, spices, some kangaroo fillet, a few baby tomatoes and a handful of baby spinach leaves. Fast, healthy, one-pot cooking.
Looking for recipe inspiration to enjoy legumes?
- Visit my web site at www.olwenanderson.com.au (recipes tag on the blog)
- Look at recipe books for cultures where legumes are part of the daily diet: South American, Mediterranean, Indian.
You all are must be sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo tired of hearing me talk about the benefits of sleep. But I work with a sleepless population and it takes a few times to present my case before I make my point. I figure if I hammer at this from as many different angles as I can, and present as many examples of how poor sleep quality can interfere with your health, at least one of my examples will hit home and inspire you to consider your sleep habits and choices.
This doesn't bode well for Jay Leno and David Letterman…unless they team up with TiVo for advertising!
Women whose eggs had been examined and found to be of poor quality had those eggs examined by researchers. It was found that levels of chemicals indicative of oxidative stress were higher in those eggs than they were in the eggs of women whose eggs had been determined to be of good quality.
Taking this one step further, 18 women with low quality eggs were divided into one of three groups and given one of the following 3 regimens: (1) 3 mg melatonin per day, (2) 600 mg vitamin E per day, or (3) 3 mg melatonin AND 600 mg vitamin E per day. Oxidative stress markers were reduced in all three scenarios.
And THEN…in the final phase, 115 women who had not become pregnant with in vitro fertilization (IVF) were divided into two groups. The first group received 3 mg melatonin per day and the second group received no supplement. Melatonin significantly improved the rate of fertilization.
The researchers concluded that oxidative stress (which is what happens when you stress all day and don't sleep well all night), damages the quality of eggs. They also concluded that melatonin supplements can help improve fertilization rate.
Just a note--take melatonin if you want, but don't lose sight of the big picture. If you backed yourself into a corner because you weren't managing your stress and sleep, a pill may not be the complete solution to the entire problem.
Tamura H, Takasaki A, Miwa I, Taniguchi K, Maekawa R, Asada H, Taketani T, Matsuoka A, Yamagata Y, Shimamura K, Morioka H, Ishikawa H, Reiter RJ, Sugino N. Oxidative stress impairs oocyte quality and melatonin protects oocytes from free radical damage and improves fertilization rate. J Pineal Res. 2008 Apr;44(3):280-7.
Last week I had the opportunity to hear James May, the founder of Wisdom Natural Brands, based here in Phoenix, tell his story of how he became involved with developing the stevia industry. Below is a white paper he shared with us that is referenced and provides a lot of very interesting information. This is a business paper, not a scientific publication, but it does contain references that can get you started if you're looking for more information.
It's not just a sweetener, apparently it has some endocrine and appetite effects as well (may decrease your appetite for sugar), and a new study suggests it may help to improve memory.
Also, I'm providing a link to a brand new website, Stevia University, which is a resource for all things stevia. Be sure to bookmark it!
Stevia Rebaudiana Bertoni Prepared by James A. May and provided as an educational service by Wisdom Natural Brands Stevia has been correctly framed as the promised sweetener that can help resolve many of the world's sweetener, obesity, and diabetes concerns. Stevia can also solve much of the poverty of the farmers in third world countries by giving them a cash crop to grow, even improving the productivity of their soil and the quality of their other crops. Stevia can be the next generation of the world's most preferred steetener. Consumers are becoming even more excited as they learn that stevia extract was not originally a chemical invention targeted for a totally different purpose, such as a drug or insecticide, which, after it was tasted, became an artificial sweetener (1). Stevia, in its various forms has always been a natural sweetener that also offers numerous health benefits. In its natural forms it has been in use in parts of South America for more than 1500 years and, as a high intensity sweetener, in Japan and Asia for over 35 years. (2) Millions of people have ingested stevia daily and there has never been a documented adverse reaction reported (3). Modern consumers have joyful anticipation for increased use of this sweetener that does not cause fat storage, does not adversely affect blood sugar or blood pressure, reduces caries and gum disease, does no harm, is good for the human body and — can taste great — depending on the extraction methods utilized. The Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) of the World Health Organization has studied and approved 9 of the numerous naturally occurring glycosides residing in stevia leaves to be safe for human consumption in high intensity sweeteners. They are: stevioside, rebaudioside A, rebaudioside B, rebaudioside C, rebaudioside D, rebaudioside F, dulcoside A, rubusoside, and steviolbioside. Any combination of these glycosides totaling a minimum of 95%, the balance being other components of the stevia leaf, meets the standard set. HECFA refers to steviol glycosides rather than stevia glycosides in determining acceptable daily intake (ADI) amounts of 4 mg per kilogram of body weight. This provides a 100-fold safety factor, meaning the human body can handle 100 times this amount and still be within the safety limits. However, steviol is one of three metabolites (i.e. the breakdown aglycones being steviol, isosteviol, and a unit of glucose) of the stevia glycosides, therefore, this related to 12 mg of the naturally occurring stevia glycosides per kilogram of body weight. Stevia glycosides are broken down into the three metabolites by bacterial action in the intestinal tract. It is well documented that steviol and the other metabolites are entirely excreted from the body. In a presentation of the recent science regarding stevia at the 2009 annual meeting of the Calorie Control Council, Claire C. Kruger, PhD, DABT, CEO of Spherix Incorporated, a biopharmaceutical company, reported that"Stevia glycosides have very low toxicity in animals and there is no evidence of risk in humans, including repeat dose systemic toxicity, carcinogenicity, developmental, or reproductive effects. The weight of evidence indicates that steviol glycosides are not genotoxic." She also reported that"Stevia extracts and steviol glycosides show no DNA damage in a broad array of in vitro and in vivo assay," and that the"safety of ingestion of steviol glycosides in hmans has been corroborated in clinical trials; measures of tolerance, body weight, clinical chemistry, hematology and urinalyis did not show any evidence of untoward effects." She reported that critical newly published studies (5) resolve questions about any untoward effects after long term repeated exposure to steviol glycosides. The Proceedings of the 3rd Stevia Sumposium 2009, held in Belgium reported recent scientific studies that found that,"Stevioside (i.e. the combination of Stevia glyucosides- lowered glucose, insulin and cholesterol. It had no effect on triglycerides or glucose tolerance," and that it"inhibited atherosclerosis by reducing macrophage, oxidized LDL and lipids. Furthermore, stevioside treatment increased the smooth muscle area of the plaque. This increase, together with the reduction of macrophages resulted in an increase of the smooth muscle cell-to-macrophage ratio". The scientists concluded by stating that"this is the first report showing an association between stevioside treatment and increased adiponectin and insulin sensitivity, improved antioxidant defense and reduced atherosclerosis. The decrease of oxidized LDL by stevioside is particularly important in view of our recent observation that LDL is associated with metabolic syndrome components." (6) No allergic reactions to stevia have been reported (7). A patent application submitted to the US Patent Office, dated February 17, 2011, makes several significant claims, as a result of their scientific research, pertaining to stevia and brain function."Thus to summarize, stevia extract enabled improved learning and memory performance, to a similar, or better, extent as a natural reference substance, ginkgo biloba, and a pharmaceutical positive control compound, rolipram. These data showed that stevia-treated mice not only learned better than other groups but also retained their memory for a longer time period." When the product was given to human subjects they reported that,"Cognitive function, alertness and the ability to focus on work are seen to improve." The product they used was make by cooking leaves in water and is basically the same product sold by SweetLeaf (R), as stevia concentrate, since 1982. SweetLeaf Stevia Sweetener is the only commercially available stevia extract that is made with a revolutionary new technology that uses only cool purified water and a series of filters. All other brands, currently in the market, utilize old technology that incorporates various chemicals, solvents and alcohols, including ethanol and methanol. Because stevia extracts can be between 200 and 300 times sweeter than sugar, they must be blended with other ingredients utilized as a carrier to make them palatable as a table-top sweetener. While all other brands use a sugar product, SweetLeaf(R) uses inulin, extracted from chicory root, which is a natural soluble fiber and prebiotic, thus creating a sweetener that improve health and vitality. SweetLeaf (R) wass the first stevia brand in the United States to acienve the FDA GRAS (Generally Recognied As Safe) designation. REFERENCES 1. Aspartame was developed in 1965 by GD Searle, a pharmaceutical company, to be a prescription only drug for peptic ulcers. After it was tasted the company began the process to obtain FDA acceptance as a sweetener,which was achieved in 1981. According to Discover Magazine, 20 Things You Don't Know About Sugar, Sucralose (Splenda) was originally developed to be an insecticide (Oct. 2009, 121). 2. May, James A, The Miracle of Stevia, Kensington Publishing Corp. New York City, NY, 2003, 7, 32-42. 3. Geuns, Jan MC. Review:The Safety of Stevioside Used as a Sweetener, Proceeding of the first symposium: The Safety of Steviiside, KULeuven, 2004, 112. 4. http://www.steviauniversity.com/. Health and Healing Benefits of Stevia. 5. Ferri et all 2006; Jeppesen et al 2006; Barriocanal et al 2008; Maki et al 2008. 6. Gerraert, Benjamine et a, Natural Sweetener Stevioside Inhibits Atherosclerosis by Increasing the Antioxidant Defense in Obese, Insulin Resistant Mice, Atherosclerosis and Metabolism Unit, Deptarmtne of Cardiovascular diseases and Leuven Food Science and Nutrition Research Center Laboratory of Functional Biology, Katholieke University, Leuven, Belgium. 7. Geuns, op cit p. 85.
My post a few days ago about the effects of PCOS on the brain seems to have created some discomfort. We lost a few Facebook fans, and those who did respond, said that learning that PCOS was taking its toll on brain tissue and function was somewhat depressing to take. Theories of behavioral change state that until you know a problem exists, you will not act to change. So while the news can be uncomfortable to live with, the good news is, now you know why you need to make changes. You can't talk yourself out of those changes by convincing yourself that you're at peace with your body type, or that maybe you can live without having a baby. You're fighting for your cognitive life, and only you can make the changes that can make a difference. Here is a list of things you can do to help preserve brain and nervous system function. 1. Get sleep. You may think it's a badge of honor to cut yourself short in the sleep department. But it takes its toll. It is when you sleep, that your brain cleans out all the crud from the day before…spit shining neurons, so to speak. If you go too long without sleep, it's like you're letting rust accumulate all throughout your brain. Make it a habit to get to bed at an hour that allows you to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night. 2. Reduce stress. Every little thought, behavior, chemical reaction, that gets you through a day, requires a series of neurons to coordinate that activity. Every time a neuron is asked to work, it uses glucose to do so. Every time a neuron burns a molecule of glucose, it uses oxygen to do so. More neurons = more glucose = more oxidation. Make it a priority to give up the small stuff…and if you can't completely give it up…learn how not to sweat it so much. 3. Manage mental health issues. Most mental health diagnoses affecting PCOS (anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, OCD, ADHD), involve processes that overwork the brain and nervous system. People with these disorders are fairly high energy, and that means they are using more neurons, more often, with far more intensity, than people who don't have to live with these conditions. Get counseling. If you need medication, take it. Health means MENTAL as well as PHYSICAL conditioning. Take it seriously. Do what you need to do. Slow down those neurons in any (legal) way available to you. 4. Exercise. Research is showing that regular physical activity slows down the development of brain diseases like Alzheimer's and helps to maintain brain tissue. How many times have you struggled with a problem at your desk, put it down, walked over to the post office, and had an inspiration while moving your body? Muscles and neurons are best friends. Be sure to give them plenty of play dates.
5. Eat less carbohydrate. Because your brain uses glucose, and because it's going to want more glucose when it is stressed, you're going to want to eat more carbs when under pressure. Remember what I said in number 2. The more carbs you eat, the more oxidative stress you impose on your brain. The more easily your brain rusts out and breaks down. I want you to think of this picture every time from this point forward you see a donut, order of french fries, or bottle of soda. Look less appetizing? Good. That was my point. 6. Eat antioxidants Antioxidants, those chemicals with the funny names nutrition experts love to impress people with in their blogs…hate oxidation. Eat them. Don't worry if you can pronounce their names, just know if the food in your hand (1) doesn't have an ingredient label, (2) has color, (3) and rots if left too long in your fridge, it's good for you. Put it on your plate and into your body. 7. Use fish oil. Fifteen percent of the dry weight of a healthy human brain is DHA, one of the primary omega-3's found in fish oil. It has to be fish, it can't be nuts, or flax, or greens. Eat the fish or take the capsules. I don't care if they come up a little bit. You have a choice…burps or brains. Just do it. 8. Reduce omega-6's. All those oils beginning with the letters"s" and"c"…break down brain tissue. Read labels. Get them out of your diet. Two exceptions. Organic canola is fine and coconut oil is fine, provided you're not eating it by the tablespoonful. 9. Yoga. Yoga tones the nervous system. It chills you out. It improves circulation in your spinal column. It improves your flexibility. It helps to manage mental health issues. It pretty much takes items 1 through 8 and makes them work even more effectively for you. It's worth the time. 10. Cut the high-fructose corn syrup. Recent research suggests that HFCS affects memory. Get it out of your diet!
It’s normal to have some anxiety from time to time. Everyone experiences anxiety as a normal reaction to threatening, dangerous, uncertain, or important situations. When you’re taking a test, going on a trip, or meeting your prospective in-laws for the first time, you’re going to have anxiety. Psychologists classify anxiety as normal or pathological. Normal anxiety can enhance your function, motivation, and productivity, such as the person who works well under pressure.
But there’s a larger problem called Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and it affects an estimated five to seven million Americans. People with GAD experience pathological anxiety, which is excessive, chronic, and typically interferes with their ability to function in normal daily activities. GAD patients are about 60%women/40% men, and women with PCOS are affected by anxiety disorders more often than other people, just as we’re more affected by depressive disorders.
There are biological and environmental risk factors for GAD, which include the following:
• Genetics (Research has shown a 20% risk for GAD in blood relatives of people with the disorder and a 10% risk among relatives of people with depression.)
• Sleep deprivation, sleep inconsistency
Stress in the following areas can intensify symptoms:
• Financial concerns
• Health
• Relationships
• School problems
• Work problems
Symptoms include trembling, general nervousness or tension, shortness of breath, diarrhea, hot flashes, feeling worried or agitated, trouble falling asleep, poor concentration, tingling, sweating, rapid heartbeat, frequent urination, and dizziness. A panic attack, which is an extreme manifestation of anxiety, may feel like a heart attack, and sends many patients to the emergency room. If you’re having these types of symptoms, you should definitely make sure you’ve seen a physician to rule out medical conditions.
This type of anxiety is obviously more severe than normal anxiety, and can even be quite disabling. There might be a tendency to expect the worst without clear evidence, with particular worries about health, finances, job, and family. Individuals often can’t relax, sleep or concentrate on the task at hand. This disorder affects the quality of work and home life. You may know that your worry is excessive, but don’t feel like you can do anything about it. There are also some cultural issues — many people in the United States who are diagnosed with GAD claim to have been nervous or anxious their whole lives. Eastern societies, on the other hand, perceive and treat anxiety differently, as something associated with pain. So anxiety may be seen as normal in one setting, and pathological in another setting.
GAD is associated with irregular levels of neurotransmitters in the brain. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that carry signals across nerve endings. Neurotransmitters that seem to involve anxiety include norepinephrine, GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), and serotonin. Anxiety may result in part from defects in serotonin neurotransmission, and drugs that augment this activity may be useful in the treatment of anxiety disorders. However, many therapists believe that GAD is a behavioral condition and should not be treated with medication. Further, some believe GAD is more closely related to depression than to anxiety. I tend to believe that there’s a spectrum, and usually, if you’ve got depression, you’ve got some anxiety, and vice versa. There also seems to be a correlation between GAD and other psychiatric disorders, including depression, phobia disorder, and panic disorder. Anxiety is a risk factor for sleep disorders such as insomnia.
If you have numerous symptoms of anxiety, it’s important to be evaluated by a mental health professional who can help you identify the causes of your anxiety, and teach you ways to manage your anxiety. Many forms of therapy are effective, and I see great results in my anxiety clients who practice yoga or meditation (or both!). If that’s not enough, you can be evaluated by a psychiatrist and try some of the highly effective anxiety-reduction medications.
Gretchen Kubacky, Psy.D. is a Health Psychologist in private practice in West Los Angeles, California. She has completed the inCYST training. She specializes in counseling women and couples who are coping with infertility, PCOS, and related endocrine disorders and chronic illnesses.
If you would like to learn more about Dr. HOUSE or her practice, or obtain referrals in the Los Angeles area, please visit her website at www.drhousemd.com, or e-mail her at AskDrHouseMD@gmail.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @askdrhousemd.
Well, those busy chicks over at Power Up for PCOS have opened up a Cafe Press store with all kinds of cool stuff. If you have been asked for a Christmas wish list, be sure to check this out for all kinds of fun stuff.
http://www.cafepress.com/powerupforpcos
Beth and I double checked to be sure the products they offer are BPA-free, and she removed the items for which this could not be confirmed.
Wouldn't make sense to put hormone-unfriendly chemicals in your life in the name of fixing your hormones, now, would it?
We're all gearing up for the New Year, so I thought I'd talk a bit about alcohol.
We recently had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with Sarah Hammelman of Arizona's Sand Reckoner Vineyards (in Willcox, Arizona). She brought some of her vineyard's wine and shared with us what it has taken her and her husband to convert their vineyard to a pesticide-free operation.
(I am still in awe of Sarah's wine swirling technique…she had this way of whipping that wine around just to the top of the glass without spilling a single drop…I am going to see if I can talk her into sending me a video so you can see for yourself!)
I learned that many smaller vineyards cannot afford the true"organic designation", even though they're putting in tremendous effort to create a healthy product. It pays to get to know your vintners and distillers, since pesticides have been shown to have a pretty significant effect on fertility and hormone function in general.
I recently wrote an article for Examiner.com in response to the news that alcohol consumption was strongly correlated with breast cancer, considering the omission of analysis of pesticide exposure when interpreting the data. One of my Examiner colleagues, Dr. Robin Wulffson, commented that I'd only spoken to wine. In responding to his comment, I learned that there are many organic and pesticide-free hard alcohol options as well…be sure to look for them! Many of those spirits come from countries where there is far less attention to endocrine disruptors and chemicals than we have here in the United States.
By the way, here are Lisa Reinhart, Chief Chocolatier at Wei of Chocolate, and inCYSTer and yoga instructor Sarah Jones, along with Sarah. As you can see, at inCYST we firmly believe that it has to be fun as well as healthy!
Cheers to all of you, we'll see you in the New Year!
I recently started to tell a good friend about the antioxidant power of turmeric. He stopped me midsentence.
"What is it with all this antioxidant stuff? First it was pomegranates. Then it was Mongolian gojis. It's something different every day."
(Insert big sigh and eye roll here.)
"Can you even tell me what an antioxidant looks like?"
My friend's reaction verified something I've sensed for awhile now. In our quest to show how much we know about antioxidants, we've thrown long words and catch phrases at the public, to the point where the concept has become nothing more than hype.
It's not long after any concept hits"hype mode" that it becomes passe. And being passe is absolutely not what the average antioxidant should be, to ANYONE.
So, I'd like to answer my friend's question. My answer is somewhat long, but I will do my best to encourage him--and you--to see past the hype that's been flung at all those innocent pomegranates and beets and Indian curries!
Here are ten important things to know about antioxidants.
1. AN ANTIOXIDANT IS LIKE RUSTPROOF FOR YOUR BODY. Oxidation is the natural process of something breaking down over time. On your car, oxidation looks like rust. Oxidation in humans isn't much different; it's somewhat of a biological rusting out process. So an antioxidant, really, is human rustproofing. 2. AN ANTIOXIDANT SLOWS DOWN AGING. This is primarily a blog for women with PCOS. What does aging have to do with that? PCOS is a disease of inflammation, and inflammation is an aging process. If you stand back and look at the big picture, a lot of the symptoms of PCOS are actually indications of an accelerated aging process--arthritis, forgetfulness, poor sleep, diabetes at an early age, premature menopause--I am struck at how many of my clients really present as old people in young peoples' bodies. Just as there really is no cure for the wear and tear on the body of a car that works better than prevention, PCOS needs preventive action. It's about choosing food, activity and lifestyle behaviors that make it easier for your body to stay young. It IS possible to reverse some aging, but it's a whole lot easier to prevent aging before it happens. Making good antioxidant choices every day is an important part of your personal rustproofing plan (PRP). 3. DON'T JUDGE AN ANTIOXIDANT BY ITS SCRABBLE SCORE. This one drives me nuts. Nutritionists tend to be extremely detail oriented, and they seem to have adopted this compulsion to throw dozens of new long words at the public. I am equally as nerdy when it comes to biochemistry, but there is a place for those words. If seeing them in an article isn't inspiring you to put some new and different foods on your shopping list, what's the point?
I don't believe in dumbing down the public, but I have to admit, much of what I read has MY eyes glazing over because how the word was spelled or pronounced was apparently more important to the author than what's in it for me to care.
If you're adding a few beets at the salad bar or learning to cook Indian curries, that's what matters. The chemicals will help you to be healthier, whether or not you can spell or pronounce them.
4. THE BEST ANTIOXIDANTS ARE FOUND IN THEIR ORIGINAL PACKAGING. I graduated from college in 1982, and there were only a handful of antioxidants to learn about at the most. Back then (I guess you could say the nutritional dark ages!) we learned mostly about vitamins and minerals. Many of the compounds we knew about, were extracted and sold as"complete nutritional replacements". Of course, the definition of"complete" was based on our limited knowledge of what food actually contains. They weren't really complete because they did not contain the antioxidant compounds we didn't even know about!
That, for me, was a huge lesson learned, about how much of an expert I can truly be in this field. There will always be things I don't know, and need to know, and my responsibility as a health educator is to be as complete in talking about what I don't know as I do about what I do know.
Therefore, my advice when it comes to antioxidants and supplements, is not to focus on what the most important, most perfect antioxidant might be, then to extract it and consume it in large quantities. Rather, look for opportunities to eat whole foods that are as close to the ground and/or tree when you consume them. The more something is sliced, diced, extracted, powdered, concentrated, the less like nature it is.
Remember, whole is best. There may be important nutritional compounds we have yet to learn about that aren't in those expensive antioxidant supplements.
5. ANTIOXIDANTS ARE COLORFUL CHARACTERS. Your plate needs a variety of colors if it's also going to contain antioxidants. I created this graphic last summer to illustrate the concept. If you're eating lots of reds and blues, and are judicious about which white foods you choose, that's a good start. But remember the greens, yellows, and oranges, too! It's really not that hard to choose colorfully. A plate of food that contains a lot of colors is also attractive. Would you rather have a plate of white fish, cauliflower, and mashed potatoes, or a chicken salad packed with apples, walnuts, and spinach?
Eat patriotically--doesn't matter what country--if you put color on your plate, you can't go wrong.
6. ANTIOXIDANTS LOVE A GOOD PARTY! Antioxidants tend to be more effective in the presence of other antioxidants. In other words, you'll get more bang for your buck out of Compound A if you are also eating Compound B. That's why there is no such thing as the ultimate antioxidant. Just like you have less fun at a party if you act like a wallflower, your"health party" will be a whole lot more worthwhile if you introduce and mingle different compounds.
7. ANTIOXIDANTS LOVE THE GYM. Antioxidants have an interesting relationship with exercise. Exercise, because it raises metabolism, is actually an oxidative activity. However…when you exercise regularly, your body becomes more efficient at storing antioxidants for future use, and then mobilizing them to areas where exercise has raised your metabolism. To get the best advantage out of exercise, it's important to (1) not overexercise, but (2) exercise regularly, and (3) be sure the diet you eat on a regular basis is full of colorful foods.
8. ANTIOXIDANTS ARE HOMEBODIES. When fruits are picked early so they can be shipped to distant markets, they're not allowed to ripen and develop their fullest antioxidant potential. When fruits are processed so they can be stored and consumed through off-seasons, they lose antioxidant power. So while I love blueberries and I appreciate their antioxidant power, they are more of a summer treat for me. Since I live in Arizona, I try to eat lots of citrus in the winter, watermelon in the summer, and to use foods from other areas as occasional treats. Every locality has its specialties. Become familiar with what's in season in your area, and if you travel, experiment with local specialties. A Goji berry is definitely a powerful antioxidant tool, but you can be antioxidant friendly even if your plate was not partially picked by distant farmers on exotic hillsides. Some of your greatest antioxidant friends may be lurking just down the road at your local organic farm.
9. ANTIOXIDANTS SHOULD NOT BREAK YOUR BUDGET. When you eat seasonally, you should also save money. In fact, one of the easy way to know what fruits and vegetables are in season is to look for what is cheap! If you frequent your local farmer's market, what you see at the majority of the stands is likely the local seasonal offering. I like eating seasonally because foods move in and out of my menu and I don't get bored because I'm eating the same thing over and over again. Get to know how seasons affect food availability in your area, and plan menus around that. It is fun, not to mention tasty!
10. THE BEST ANTIOXIDANT OF ALL--IS A PROACTIVE LIFESTYLE. OK, here's a picture of an antioxidant. (A face only a molecule mother could love…) What it looks like isn't as important as what it does. An antioxidant keeps you healthy and young! Any choice you make that creates an imbalance--too much exercise and not enough rest, not enough sleep, an imbalanced diet, poor stress management--puts you at risk of antioxidant deficiency. If you're not making good lifestyle choices and assuming a supplement will absorb the imbalance, you're putting yourself at even greater risk. Be sure your diet has a lot of variety and color.
Even better, apply that mentality to the rest of your life. --Create a social support network with a variety of personalities that encourage the best in you to come out, and who accept you for who you are without unrealistic expectations. --Participate in a few different physical activities that allow muscles to rest while others work. --Do things that make you laugh! (Yes, in a way, your favorite corny movie is an antioxidant!) --Do something creative.
There are many kinds of antioxidants that have nothing to do with nutrition. Be sure your choices add up to move you in the direction of capitalizing on them, rather than putting you in a position where you need to supplement to reverse damage that didn't need to be done.
OK, good friend, I hope I answered your question and you made it to the end of this blog post without rolling those eyes again!
I've told many a client they're sick and they've been playing catch up since before they were even born. Others feel the same way, too…this was recently published in USA Today:
By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY Keishawn Williams is already talking to her baby, although her child isn't due until November.
"What are you doing?" asks Williams, 22."Are you awake? Are you asleep? Why are you sitting on my bladder?"
Although Williams may not realize it, her body and baby are also conducting a separate, even more important conversation that may influence her child's health for the rest of its life. Although neither mother nor child is aware of this crucial dialogue, Williams' body already is telling her baby about what to expect from the world outside, says Mark Hanson, a professor at the University of Southampton in England.
And thanks to those biological signals, the choices that Williams makes today — by getting good prenatal care, eating nutrient-packed vegetables and avoiding alcohol, tobacco and caffeine — may help her baby long after birth, Hanson says. Research into the"developmental origins of adult disease" suggests that Williams' healthy living may help her child avoid problems such as cancer, heart disease, depression and diabetes not just in childhood, but 50 years from now.
Though adults still need to eat right and exercise, a growing number of studies now suggest the best time to fight the diseases of aging may be before babies are even born, says Peter Gluckman of the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
Williams' baby is still too young to kick, let alone ponder its future. But its body is already adapting and preparing for its specific environment, Gluckman says, by reading cues sent through Williams' blood and amniotic fluid.
"Every baby in fetal life is adjusting its pattern of development according to the world it predicts it will live in," he says.
Reading cues while in utero
During the crucial"window of opportunity" before birth and during infancy, environmental cues help"program" a person's DNA, says Alexander Jones of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and the University College of London Institute for Child Health. This happens through a delicate interplay of genes and the environment called epigenetics, which can determine how a baby reacts for the rest of its life, Jones says.
Through epigenetics, chemical groups attach to DNA. Although they don't change the order of the genes, the chemical groups can switch those genes on or off, Jones says.
Many things, such as chemical contaminants, can cause epigenetic changes. So babies exposed in the womb to synthetic hormones may begin responding abnormally to the natural hormones later made by their own bodies, says Hugh Taylor of Yale University School of Medicine.
That's why, doctors believe, many babies exposed before birth to a drug called DES, or diethylstilbestrol, later developed rare cancers or fertility problems, Taylor says.
Doctors stopped prescribing DES, which had been used for decades to prevent miscarriages, in 1971. But Taylor and other scientists are concerned that"hormone-disrupting" chemicals, such as those used in pesticides and even common plastics, could cause similar problems.
Babies and children also can develop abnormal reactions to stress, says Jack Shonkoff of Harvard University, co-author of a June paper on early influences in health in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
In the short term, reacting to typical, everyday difficulties can help people develop a healthy response to stress.
But persistent,"toxic" stress — such as neglect or extreme poverty — may program a child's nervous system to be on perpetual high alert. Over time, this can damage the immune response and lead to chronic ailments, such as heart disease and depression, the study says.
Diet as a predictor
A pregnant woman's diet tells a fetus a lot about its future environment, including how much food will be available after birth, Jones says.
A baby conceived during a famine, for example, might learn to be"thrifty," hoarding every calorie and packing on fat rather than muscle, even at the expense of developing vital organs, such as the kidneys, liver and brain. Because of a lack of calories, the baby also may be born small.
In a famine, those early adjustments and predictions about the future could mean the difference between survival and starvation, Jones says.
But babies may run into trouble if the world doesn't match their predictions, Jones says.
A baby who has learned to hoard calories, for example, may grow up to be fat or diabetic once he or she finally gets enough to eat, Jones says. Doctors believe this occurs not just with babies whose mothers are starving, but with those who are malnourished because of a mother's medical problems, poor nutrition or exposure to tobacco smoke, which damages the placenta.
It's well known, Taylor says, that women who smoke are more likely to have low-birth-weight babies, who are in some ways"starved" for nutrients in the womb. Babies born too small are at risk for many immediate problems, such as underdeveloped lungs and bleeding in the brain.
If they survive, these youngsters also face long-term risks.
Studies show that small babies who gain weight rapidly in infancy or childhood — a sign that bodies are already making the most of every calorie — also have higher rates of adult heart disease and diabetes, Jones says.
Specialized X-rays have shown babies of young mothers with poor diets in India, for example, are born with extra belly fat, even though they seem to be a normal weight. Once these babies start getting an adequate diet, they are likely to put on weight, Gluckman says.
"Even by the time of birth, they're on a different pattern of development," Gluckman says.
Teaching future mothers
Adversity in early life can increase a child's risk of disease, but it doesn't seal his or her fate, Shonkoff says.
Although emotional abuse in childhood increases the risk of adult depression, for example, supportive relationships with adults can help children cope and recover, Shonkoff says.
Communities also can help, Gluckman says. By helping women such as Williams get good prenatal care and nutrition, for example, communities can reduce the number of fetuses who are malnourished and born small, Gluckman says. Babies who are born at normal weight are more likely to maintain that healthy weight.
Because half of pregnancies are unplanned, women need to learn about nutrition — and maintain healthy diets — long before they conceive, Gluckman says.
"We have got to give far greater focus to mothers, the women who are likely to become mothers and to the care of newborn children than we have in the past," Gluckman says.
Williams, who also has a 1-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter, says she's trying hard to give her children a bright future. She breast-fed both and now works as a breast-feeding peer counselor at the Family Health and Birth Center in Washington, D.C., where many patients are low-income or minority mothers.
The birth center also aims to help babies by getting their moms good prenatal care.
About 6% of black mothers who delivered at the birth center had low-birth-weight babies, compared with the citywide average of 14.2% for black mothers, says the center's Ruth Watson Lubic.
"Twentieth-century medicine dealt with child health and adult health separately," Shonkoff says."What 21st-century medicine is telling us is that if we want to change adult health, we have to look in babies, even before they're born."
In my role as a health psychologist who specializes in PCOS and other endocrine disorders, I read a lot of material on PCOS, insulin resistance, infertility, diabetes, and other hormonal matters. The more I read, the more I’m aware of the biases in the various camps, by which I mean, these types of messages that populate the media, presented here with my interpretation of the subtext:
• Natural is the only way to go – you’ll destroy your body with birth control pills and metformin (they’re all toxic chemicals!); • Supplements are the way to go — forget the pharmaceuticals (it’s only 90 capsules a day, but you’ll manage); • If you would just practice positive thinking, and say enough mantras, you could improve your fertility and have a cute baby just like this (it’s really your fault); • We should accept our “flaws” as part of our beauty (and damn the women who take advantage of electrolysis, body sculpting, and hair dye); • If you don’t follow this medical protocol quite strictly for the rest of your life, you’ll end up in terrible condition, with a host of dreadful side effects that will ultimately make your life miserable and then kill you (I’m the doctor, and I hold all the answers, and I’m going to scare you into compliance); • Low carbohydrate diets are the only solution (chronic deprivation is the way to go); • PCOS women shouldn’t exercise too much, or they’ll get all bulky and look like men (this is not actually physiologically possible, but it’s a great excuse); • Exercise is the only thing that really works, and here’s how to do it (never mind that I don’t have PCOS myself, and know nothing about PCOS).
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. There’s a problem with all of these messages, and the problem is, they’re all wrong. There is no one solution that applies universally to all of us. We are each a unique composition of chemistries, ethnicities, weights, ages, and personal points of view. We have access to different specialists and reading materials. We have different beliefs about what works and what doesn’t. We have varying abilities to assess the correctness of scientific or medical data. We have limited finances and time to try every possible potential solution. And we are, quite possibly, exhausted from trying.
Additionally, consider the source. Quite a lot of these messages (picked up directly from my reading, but not attributed, in order to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent) are presented to us with the intention of selling something – supplements, coaching services, dietary plans, books, CDs, or workshops. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things, by the way, but if the message consistently points in one direction, and it always results in you buying something, it may not be a message you want to heed. This blog tries to present useful information in a way that allows you to make reasonable choices, utilizing commonly available resources, and without pushing you towards any one philosophy, guru, product, or way of thinking. I think that’s a sensible approach.
That being said, we need to respect the choices that our fellow travelers in this PCOS journey are making. If a woman wants to try metformin, or birth control pills, or Spironolactone, or a low carbohydrate diet, and there’s no medical contraindication, let’s support her the best way we can. Don’t present your personal experience as the absolute truth. Offer it as a way of being there for support, or simply to share your experience so she has other “evidence” to consider.
Consider the impact of emphatic statements that “the only” way to produce a baby, or weight loss, or better fasting glucose numbers, is by following your plan. The woman on the other end may not have the time, education, or finances to implement your well-meaning suggestions, and the result on the other end may be a real emotional slam for a woman who’s already feeling fragile and desperate (this is especially true in the fertility/infertility arena).
Gretchen Kubacky, Psy.D. is a Health Psychologist in private practice in West Los Angeles, California. She specializes in counseling women and couples who are coping with infertility, PCOS, and related endocrine disorders and chronic illnesses.
If you would like to learn more about Dr. HOUSE or her practice, or obtain referrals in the Los Angeles area, please visit her website at www.drhousemd.com, or e-mail her at Gretchen@drhousemd.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @askdrhousemd.
Bisphenol-A (BPA) is everywhere. In addition to cans and plastic packaging, it is found in thermal paper and carbonless copy paper, which are commonly used for receipts, airline tickets, event tickets, and labels. It is so ubiquitous that it was found in the urine of 95% of all people the CDC tested between 1988-1994.
One study found a strong correlation between body mass index (BMI) and BPA levels. That, to a dietitian, seems like a vicious cycle, since a lot of the foods I personally believe are associated with obesity (sodas, chips) are packaged in BPA-containing materials. So not only do you expose yourself to the chemical when exposing those foods and beverages…you are highly likely encouraging your body to hang on to those chemicals if you're eating them in a way that is out of balance with your daily caloric needs.
Staying lean, however, is not a guarantee you'll be protected. It is looking like BPA can elevate liver enzymes, a common problem with PCOS. And that problem persists even in normal weight individuals.
Scientists do believe BPA passes through the body very quickly. However, some of the problems associated with BPA seem to be nonreversible. And unborn babies and newborns, who are going through rapid development, seem to be highly susceptible to this effect. That means that you can reduce your exposure to BPA and lower your current levels, but you may not be able to undo all of the changes that BPA had the opportunity to make. You can eliminate future problems…but you may not be able to undo all that's been done.
I really want this blog to be positive and not scary. However, this is a very serious issue. Since many of you are eating to conceive and eventually eating for more than yourself, it's important to understand that how you choose to eat can impact more than just you. And it's not just about eating to conceive…it's about eating for a healthier next generation.
The less packaging your food comes in, over time, the less likely it is you'll be consuming BPA.
Gehring, Martin; Tennhardt, L., Vogel, D., Weltin, D., Bilitewski, B. (2004) (PDF). Bisphenol A Contamination of Wastepaper, Cellulose and Recycled Paper Products. Waste Management and the Environment II. WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, vol. 78. WIT Press. http://rcswww.urz.tu-dresden.de/~gehring/deutsch/dt/vortr/040929ge.pdf. Retrieved 2009-10-15.
I recently started to tell a good friend about the antioxidant power of turmeric. He stopped me midsentence.
"What is it with all this antioxidant stuff? First it was pomegranates. Then it was Mongolian gojis. It's something different every day."
(Insert big sigh and eye roll here.)
"Can you even tell me what an antioxidant looks like?"
My friend's reaction verified something I've sensed for awhile now. In our quest to show how much we know about antioxidants, we've thrown long words and catch phrases at the public, to the point where the concept has become nothing more than hype.
It's not long after any concept hits"hype mode" that it becomes passe. And being passe is absolutely not what the average antioxidant should be, to ANYONE.
So, I'd like to answer my friend's question. My answer is somewhat long, but I will do my best to encourage him--and you--to see past the hype that's been flung at all those innocent pomegranates and beets and Indian curries!
Here are ten important things to know about antioxidants.
1. AN ANTIOXIDANT IS LIKE RUSTPROOF FOR YOUR BODY. Oxidation is the natural process of something breaking down over time. On your car, oxidation looks like rust. Oxidation in humans isn't much different; it's somewhat of a biological rusting out process. So an antioxidant, really, is human rustproofing. 2. AN ANTIOXIDANT SLOWS DOWN AGING. This is primarily a blog for women with PCOS. What does aging have to do with that? PCOS is a disease of inflammation, and inflammation is an aging process. If you stand back and look at the big picture, a lot of the symptoms of PCOS are actually indications of an accelerated aging process--arthritis, forgetfulness, poor sleep, diabetes at an early age, premature menopause--I am struck at how many of my clients really present as old people in young peoples' bodies. Just as there really is no cure for the wear and tear on the body of a car that works better than prevention, PCOS needs preventive action. It's about choosing food, activity and lifestyle behaviors that make it easier for your body to stay young. It IS possible to reverse some aging, but it's a whole lot easier to prevent aging before it happens. Making good antioxidant choices every day is an important part of your personal rustproofing plan (PRP). 3. DON'T JUDGE AN ANTIOXIDANT BY ITS SCRABBLE SCORE. This one drives me nuts. Nutritionists tend to be extremely detail oriented, and they seem to have adopted this compulsion to throw dozens of new long words at the public. I am equally as nerdy when it comes to biochemistry, but there is a place for those words. If seeing them in an article isn't inspiring you to put some new and different foods on your shopping list, what's the point?
I don't believe in dumbing down the public, but I have to admit, much of what I read has MY eyes glazing over because how the word was spelled or pronounced was apparently more important to the author than what's in it for me to care.
If you're adding a few beets at the salad bar or learning to cook Indian curries, that's what matters. The chemicals will help you to be healthier, whether or not you can spell or pronounce them.
4. THE BEST ANTIOXIDANTS ARE FOUND IN THEIR ORIGINAL PACKAGING. I graduated from college in 1982, and there were only a handful of antioxidants to learn about at the most. Back then (I guess you could say the nutritional dark ages!) we learned mostly about vitamins and minerals. Many of the compounds we knew about, were extracted and sold as"complete nutritional replacements". Of course, the definition of"complete" was based on our limited knowledge of what food actually contains. They weren't really complete because they did not contain the antioxidant compounds we didn't even know about!
That, for me, was a huge lesson learned, about how much of an expert I can truly be in this field. There will always be things I don't know, and need to know, and my responsibility as a health educator is to be as complete in talking about what I don't know as I do about what I do know.
Therefore, my advice when it comes to antioxidants and supplements, is not to focus on what the most important, most perfect antioxidant might be, then to extract it and consume it in large quantities. Rather, look for opportunities to eat whole foods that are as close to the ground and/or tree when you consume them. The more something is sliced, diced, extracted, powdered, concentrated, the less like nature it is.
Remember, whole is best. There may be important nutritional compounds we have yet to learn about that aren't in those expensive antioxidant supplements.
5. ANTIOXIDANTS ARE COLORFUL CHARACTERS. Your plate needs a variety of colors if it's also going to contain antioxidants. I created this graphic last summer to illustrate the concept. If you're eating lots of reds and blues, and are judicious about which white foods you choose, that's a good start. But remember the greens, yellows, and oranges, too! It's really not that hard to choose colorfully. A plate of food that contains a lot of colors is also attractive. Would you rather have a plate of white fish, cauliflower, and mashed potatoes, or a chicken salad packed with apples, walnuts, and spinach?
Eat patriotically--doesn't matter what country--if you put color on your plate, you can't go wrong.
6. ANTIOXIDANTS LOVE A GOOD PARTY! Antioxidants tend to be more effective in the presence of other antioxidants. In other words, you'll get more bang for your buck out of Compound A if you are also eating Compound B. That's why there is no such thing as the ultimate antioxidant. Just like you have less fun at a party if you act like a wallflower, your"health party" will be a whole lot more worthwhile if you introduce and mingle different compounds.
7. ANTIOXIDANTS LOVE THE GYM. Antioxidants have an interesting relationship with exercise. Exercise, because it raises metabolism, is actually an oxidative activity. However…when you exercise regularly, your body becomes more efficient at storing antioxidants for future use, and then mobilizing them to areas where exercise has raised your metabolism. To get the best advantage out of exercise, it's important to (1) not overexercise, but (2) exercise regularly, and (3) be sure the diet you eat on a regular basis is full of colorful foods.
8. ANTIOXIDANTS ARE HOMEBODIES. When fruits are picked early so they can be shipped to distant markets, they're not allowed to ripen and develop their fullest antioxidant potential. When fruits are processed so they can be stored and consumed through off-seasons, they lose antioxidant power. So while I love blueberries and I appreciate their antioxidant power, they are more of a summer treat for me. Since I live in Arizona, I try to eat lots of citrus in the winter, watermelon in the summer, and to use foods from other areas as occasional treats. Every locality has its specialties. Become familiar with what's in season in your area, and if you travel, experiment with local specialties. A Goji berry is definitely a powerful antioxidant tool, but you can be antioxidant friendly even if your plate was not partially picked by distant farmers on exotic hillsides. Some of your greatest antioxidant friends may be lurking just down the road at your local organic farm.
9. ANTIOXIDANTS SHOULD NOT BREAK YOUR BUDGET. When you eat seasonally, you should also save money. In fact, one of the easy way to know what fruits and vegetables are in season is to look for what is cheap! If you frequent your local farmer's market, what you see at the majority of the stands is likely the local seasonal offering. I like eating seasonally because foods move in and out of my menu and I don't get bored because I'm eating the same thing over and over again. Get to know how seasons affect food availability in your area, and plan menus around that. It is fun, not to mention tasty!
10. THE BEST ANTIOXIDANT OF ALL--IS A PROACTIVE LIFESTYLE. OK, here's a picture of an antioxidant. (A face only a molecule mother could love…) What it looks like isn't as important as what it does. An antioxidant keeps you healthy and young! Any choice you make that creates an imbalance--too much exercise and not enough rest, not enough sleep, an imbalanced diet, poor stress management--puts you at risk of antioxidant deficiency. If you're not making good lifestyle choices and assuming a supplement will absorb the imbalance, you're putting yourself at even greater risk. Be sure your diet has a lot of variety and color.
Even better, apply that mentality to the rest of your life. --Create a social support network with a variety of personalities that encourage the best in you to come out, and who accept you for who you are without unrealistic expectations. --Participate in a few different physical activities that allow muscles to rest while others work. --Do things that make you laugh! (Yes, in a way, your favorite corny movie is an antioxidant!) --Do something creative.
There are many kinds of antioxidants that have nothing to do with nutrition. Be sure your choices add up to move you in the direction of capitalizing on them, rather than putting you in a position where you need to supplement to reverse damage that didn't need to be done.
OK, good friend, I hope I answered your question and you made it to the end of this blog post without rolling those eyes again!
As you can see in recent posts, we're getting very happy results with our nutrition/supplement protocol. If you've decided to try IVF, some of the concepts we promote might help you as well.
In a study of 18 women undergoing IVF treatment, it was found that the lower their melatonin levels, the higher the levels were of certain damaging oxidative chemicals.
An additional 115 women who had failed IVF were divided into two groups: 56 received melatonin supplementation and 59 did not. Melatonin supplementation improved the success rate of the IVF procedure.
In an additional study done in mice, eggs were incubated with a highly oxidative substance for 12 hours. The result was that egg quality suffered. By adding melatonin, this deterioration in quality was blocked.
The researchers concluded, "oxidative stress causes toxic effects on oocyte maturation and melatonin protects oocytes from oxidative stress. Melatonin is likely to improve oocyte quality and fertilization rates."
There are a couple of important consideration here.
1. When you deprive yourself of sleep, you deprive yourself of naturally produced melatonin. It damages eggs and reduces fertility.
2. You can choose to supplement to offset the damage and increase your chances of fertility, but keep in mind that if your melatonin levels are low, your body is telling you that you are out of balance. You may be able to correct part of the balance with a supplement, but it's a health risk to assume that a pill has taken care of the problem. Best to work on prioritizing sleep. After all, if you're soon going to have a baby in the house, you're going to need it!
Tamura H, Takasaki A, Miwa I, Taniguchi K, Maekawa R, Asada H, Taketani T, Matsuoka A, Yamagata Y, Shimamura K, Morioka H, Ishikawa H, Reiter RJ, Sugino N. Oxidative stress impairs oocyte quality and melatonin protects oocytes from free radical damage and improves fertilization rate. J Pineal Res. 2008 Apr;44(3):280-7.
It's Earth Month 2011, a good time to think about our connection to things much bigger than ourselves. It's easy to become overwhelmed when thinking about a problem as daunting as infertility, and to narrow your focus down to what you need to do to fix your personal problem. Nothing else can seem to matter except your own hormones.
At inCYST, one of our most important missions is to help our readers understand, that the reason many people these days are struggling with infertility, is because our unsustainable lifestyle has changed the balance on our planet. The more respect with which we treat the earth, the better the earth treats us.
I was thinking about this yesterday while running on the canal trail behind my home. I've been waiting several weeks for the baby ducks to come and they finally arrived! My run is so much more enjoyable when I can watch the little fluffballs swimming behind their mother, learning how to swim, how to dive for food, how to preen. I never cease to be amazed at how these ducks just seem to know how to do what they do.
Something that biologists are learning is that other species are having trouble reproducing as well. We've put chemicals in the water they drink, we've put pesticides in the food chain, we've encroached on their breeding grounds…and they're paying a heavy price. The only difference is, they don't have reproductive doctors and nutritionists to guide them to better fertility. Their populations decline and we lose them.
So when I was admiring the fuzzballs I thought a lot about how inCYST is about more than helping all of you. Though that's important!
It's about rallying all of you to adopt lifestyle choices that benefit EVERYONE on the planet, no matter the genus, no matter the species. I hope that this is a value that gradually blends into your pursuit of personal health.
Speaking of sustainable living as a value, we had a wonderful radio chat yesterday with Julia Bucciero of Maxim Hygiene, makers of organic, all cotton, pesticide-free, chlorine and dioxin-free feminine hygiene and personal care products. If you had not thought about the opportunity for hormone imbalance your current personal care purchases poses, it's time you should.
And consider what unnecessary amount of plastic accumulates in landfills and floats down waterways when we make certain choices! You can make a hormone-friendly, 100% biodegradable choice and with that, make a difference.
Maxim Hygiene has created a product that makes personal sense for women with PCOS, and an opportunity for each of us to live more sustainably.
If you can't find these products in your local store, be sure to contact Maxim Hygiene and let them know. They're happy to work with stores to increase their product availability. I found them on amazon.com if you prefer to purchase them online.
It can help to feel less personally picked on when you take a step back and understand how a bigger imbalance may be affecting your personal imbalance. The best way out of that corner, is to collectively start making choices that promote balance outside, as well as within, ourselves.
I had the most wonderful Sunday afternoon with a newly pregnant client and her husband. She's been told that her progesterone is low, and she was interested in knowing if there is anything she can do, naturally, to help improve the outcome of her pregnancy. We discussed five different categories of actions. Since this is an issue many women face, I'm adding them to the lineup of planned posts, today being the first of five installments.
Progesterone can be low if estrogen is high. In many cases, it's not the natural estrogen your own body is making, but environmental chemicals resembling estrogen that confuse the body.
To reduce your exposure to unnecessary estrogen…
1. Stay away from plastic. Store your leftovers in glass containers. Be absolutely sure your food does not come in contact with plastic or Saran during heating. Avoid plastic water bottles; metal varieties are pretty easy to find in your Whole Foods or REI store.
2. Use natural cosmetics and hair dyes. inCYST Provider Carmina McGee, who is a licensed aesthetician as well as a registered dietitian, has shared that the primary offending chemical, phthalate, is gradually disappearing out of cosmetics. But just to be sure, read your cosmetic and nail polish labels. Make your cosmetic shopping easy by using an all-natural brand such as Body Shop or Arbonne.
3. Get to know your local eco-friendly decorating and remodeling stores. I recently painted my condo with paint that was free of volatile organic compounds (also known as non-VOC). I used the Benjamin Moore brand which was available at a local Ace Hardware, because I liked the color selection…but there were several eco-friendly brands, and remodeling stores I found while shopping around. One store also had quite a few"green" cleaning supplies as well as carpet glue.
4. If you are not sure of the contents of inks, glues, cleaning solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, fire retardant fabrics, etc., minimize your contact with it. Here's a great list from the National Institutes of Health for your reference.
5. Minimize your intake of dietary estrogens. This one can be a little tricky, since one of the tricks we've been recommending for getting pregnant has been supplementing with flaxseed oil, a natural source of estrogen. Once you know you're pregnant, best to back off on the flaxseed. (Special note: This release I'm linking is so new the actual study is not yet listed in the National Library of Medicine database. As soon as it is, I'll be sure to evaluate and report in more detail here.)
The other food to be aware of is soy--whole soy foods such as edamame and tofu are ok, but stay away from isolates that are often used as fillers.
6. Keep your sleeping environment as dark as possible at night. Close the drapes. Use eye shades. Eliminate televisions and computers from the bedroom.
What I really like about this first list is that it is, really, about living cleaner and greener. So choices you make for your pregnancy are doing double duty and helping out the planet!
