Episode #108: PCOS and Insulin Resistance: Understanding the Connection

02:50 – 12:03 Episode #9: PCOS and the Insulin effect

Insulin resistance is a primary factor in over 70% of women with PCOS. And yet most women I work with and talk to have been told by their healthcare provider that their blood sugar is fine, that they are not insulin resistant, and that they have a normal hemoglobin ONC, which is a three-month glimpse at your average blood sugar, that they are not prediabetic, and that insulin is not their problem when it comes to PCOS. But is this true? No, it is most often false. And that’s why in today’s episode, I’m talking about the insulin effect. Whether insulin is your primary root cause or not, this episode is very important if you want to reverse your PCs naturally. So I’m so glad that you’re tuning in and let’s get started.

You’re listening to the PCOS Repair podcast, where we explore the ins and outs of PCOS and how to repair the imbalances in your hormones naturally with a little medical help. Sprinkled in Hi, I’m Ashley and Cortez. And with many years of medical and personal experience with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, it is my joy to watch women reverse their PCOS as they learn to nourish their body in a whole new way. With the power of our beliefs, our mindset and our environment, and the understanding of our genetics, we can heal at the root cause.

Welcome back to the PCOS Repair podcast, where today I’m going to be talking about the insulin effect. Notice how I didn’t say insulin-resistant? That is because there’s a big difference, and I want you to understand what that difference is. So let’s start with what is insulin? It is a hormone that is released by your pancreas when blood sugar is detected in your bloodstream. Insulin allows glucose that’s your blood sugar to enter the cells so that it can be used as energy. If more blood sugar is present than you need for energy tells your body to store the rest so it can be used later. So obviously, this is a really important hormone, but it can start to work against you when too much insulin is present. And this happens even if you are not insulin resistant. When insulin is present, it tells your body to store extra energy as fat, but it also tells your body not to burn any fat that you have stored because there is already extra energy to use up first. Now, occasionally, if this is the case, it’s not a problem. But if we keep our bodies in a constant state of insulin being present in our bloodstream, you can see how that would make weight gain easier and weight loss nearly impossible.

And this is the case for every human, not just those with PCOS, and not just those who are considered insulin resistant or diabetic. So how does what do we eat affect insulin when you eat something that is broken down and released into your body as glucose? Again, that’s another name for blood sugar, depending on what you just ate. It is broken down and enters the bloodstream quickly in large amounts, or it trickles in slowly over time. This is where the glycemic index, or glycemic load of the food that we eat becomes interesting processed and refined carbohydrates that have a very high glycemic index. These foods include things such as bread, baked goods, food with added sugar, pasta, fruit and juices, sweets, and desserts. These break down and release large amounts of glucose very quickly into your system. In response, your body releases a large amount of insulin. In contrast, vegetables, less refined carbohydrates, proteins, and fat have a much lower glycemic index, and these include foods such as vegetables, legumes, quinoa, nuts, seeds, meat and dairy products, oils, and fats. These break down a lot slower, releasing smaller amounts of glucose into your system over a longer period of time.

In response, your body releases less insulin and your body uses the energy as it becomes available. In addition to the lower insulin impact of these foods, because they release glucose slowly into your system, you will also stay for longer, have better energy, and have less cravings, all due to the fact that there is a steady stream of blood sugar being released as compared to the spike and crash that you get with a higher glycemic index. Food. Okay, so that’s a lot of physiology and nutrition there. So if your mind starts to wander and you need to go back and listen to that part again, please do so. It’s a lot to take in. And the basic point here that I want you to understand is that the food we eat during the day greatly impacts the magnitude of insulin that our body is exposed to, and that significantly impacts our metabolic system and our ability to maintain a healthy weight, as well as other aspects of our health, especially in regards to PCOS. Okay, so then what is insulin resistance? So now that we’ve covered kind of how insulin works in the body and how it impacts every human body, you are probably wondering what insulin resistance is and why you hear so much about it in concern with PCOS.

Well, when our body is consistently exposed to insulin, it becomes less responsive. It’s kind of like when you hear someone keep repeating themselves over and over and over, you start to just tune them out. Insulin sensitivity and resistance are on the spectrum. On one end of the spectrum, your body is very sensitive to insulin. That’s what we want. It’s very responsive. And in other words, it’s listening intently and functioning properly. When insulin is released into the bloodstream, on the farther end of the spectrum, the body is hardly responding at all, and you may even need medication. At this point, you may be diagnosed with diabetes. As you continue along the spectrum from sensitive to extremely diabetic, you become more and more and more resistant. And then when it comes to lab work, it’s only measuring thresholds of when we call it insulin resistance and then when we call it diabetes. But the entire spectrum is a worsening of your response and your sensitivity to insulin. So along the way, near the middle of the spectrum, we start to call it insulin resistance. And this just means that your body needs more and more insulin in order to be heard.

In essence, it’s as if you’re eating a higher glycemic food than you really are because you’re releasing a higher magnitude of insulin to get the same effect. Now it’s important to note that testing for insulin resistance is kind of a mess kind of test. In my mind, it’s about a threshold of treatment, as in if you get abnormal lab value, you need medical intervention kind of test. Now don’t get me wrong. That is an extremely important reason to test insulin resistance and to monitor. But the best part of this testing for insulin resistance is that high blood sugar or diabetes doesn’t make us aware of the problem until it’s gotten really bad. And that’s why this episode is so important. The insulin effect can be impacting your PCOS greatly before it would ever show up on a lab test. Okay, real topic of the conversation here is how does it work in PCOS? What is insulin doing that’s making our PCOS worse and why should we care about it? So first of all, it impacts our weight with increased body fat or inflammation worsens, which in turn worsens our PCOS. Excess weight makes us more insulin resistant, creating an increasingly negative cycle towards worse and worse symptoms.

And everything that we’re talking about with PCOS and insulin resistance that we’re talking about here today is working more and more against you than insulin. Just the presence of insulin in and of itself increases testosterone. With these elevated levels of testosterone, you’re going to have cycle disturbances leading to irregular or absent periods. You may have reduced ovulation and lower fertility. You can have increased acne, excess facial or body hair, or thinning of hair on the head. So those are all things that we’re going to see. When testosterone is increased and increased insulin increases. Testosterone, high blood sugar comes with a lot of health risks. As we move along that spectrum of insulin resistance towards diabetes, we increase our risk of developing type two diabetes as well as heart disease. Okay, so I know that all sounds pretty bad, but the great news is that insulin is also very responsive to lifestyle adjustment. And even though it can quickly create a negative downward spiral, as you could just see, the opposite is also true. Just a little improvement can build some positive momentum quite quickly and start an upward spiral towards better health and PCOS management.

So where does that leave you and what should you do? Okay, first of all, I do encourage you to take the PCOS root cause quiz. Symptoms may be the best and earliest indicator that insulin is a root problem for your PCOS. And so I’m going to link to that in the show notes below. Start to address the insulin effect through lifestyle adjustments because insulin is so responsive. So go ahead and start getting started with that today through dietary changes and exercise. We’ll be talking more about exercise next week, so stay tuned for that. And if you want to get started eating to address the insulin effect, I encourage you to check out my PCOS detox program, The Seven Day Hormone Reset and 30 Days of Momentum. Meal plans are designed to help you reduce the insulin effect and get rid of the cravings while resetting your insulin and metabolic hormones so that you can shed the unwanted pounds, boost your fertility, and improve all those unwanted symptoms of PCOS. If that’s something that you think would help you, I will include the link to that in the show notes below as well, and you can go check it out.

So in closing, today, here are the big takeaways. I know there was a lot of physiology, science, and medical technicalities in there, but the takeaway here is that the insulin effect can be impacting your PCs long before it is detected on blood tests or even before it’s technically. But you’re even resistant to insulin. Just the presence of insulin can start to have a detrimental effect if it’s present continuously in large quantities, and it will work against you in your efforts to lose weight until it is addressed. Insulin also messes with ovulation each month and reduces your chance of getting pregnant. And I do want to put a side note. Even if weight loss isn’t your issue, the insulin effect can still be having a detrimental effect on your PCOS, as you saw with the other ways that increased insulin in your body can be elevated testosterone levels and so forth. But the good news is that it is one of the simplest root causes of PCOS to address, which is exactly what the PCOS Repair podcast is here to help you with as you learn more and more about your PCOS root causes and how to heal and reverse your PCOS naturally.

So if you’ve enjoyed this episode today, please hit the subscribe button so that you can get notified when the next episode is released. Next week, I’ll probably be on a little bit of a rant because I’m going to be talking about a bit of a controversial topic in PCOS management, so I’m guessing you’re not going to want to miss that one. All right. Until then. Bye for now.

Did you know that studies of PCOS epigenetics have shown that our environment can either worsen or completely reverse our PCOS symptoms? I believe that although PCOS makes us sensitive to our environment, it also makes us powerful when we learn what our body needs and commit to providing those needs. Not only do we gain back our health, but we grow in power just by showing up for ourselves. This is why I’ve created a guide.

For you to get started.

My PCOS fertility meal guide can be found in the show notes below. I want to show you how to create an environment that promotes healing while still being able to live a life that you enjoy. This guide is completely free so go get your copy now so that you can step into the vision that you have for your life and for your health.

12:06.60 – 30:45.5 Episode #29: Type Two Diabetes and PCOS

Type two diabetes has become such a common disease, with earlier this year statistics showing that 37.3 million Americans, which is about one in ten, have diabetes, and about one in five of those don’t actually even know they have it. While this disease is common in what often appears to otherwise healthy individuals, I want to take a closer look today in this episode at what diabetes is. PCOS puts women at high risk of developing type two diabetes. And in fact, many women that I meet already have been diagnosed with pre-diabetes or type two diabetes. So what is diabetes? How does it impact the body? Well, that, my friend, is exactly what we’ll be talking about in this episode. So let’s get started.

You’re listening to the PCOS Repair podcast, where we explore the ins and outs of PCOS and how to repair the imbalances in your hormones naturally with a little medical help. Sprinkled in. Hi, I’m Ashlene Korcek, and with many years of medical and personal experience with polycystic ovarian syndrome, it is my joy to watch women reverse their PCOS as they learn to nourish their bodies in a whole new way. With the power of our beliefs, our mindset, and our environment and the understanding of our genetics, we can heal at the root cause.

Welcome back to the PCOS Repair Podcast, where today we’re going to be diving in a little deeper into the insulin effect root cause of PCOS, as well as type two diabetes and how you can decrease your risks of developing it. I see a lot of confusion around insulin in general. Why is it such a big deal in relation to PCOS? How does that really affect our health? And more importantly, how do we get ahold of it and improve our longevity and avoid the threat of longterm diseases such as type two diabetes? So let’s get started by discussing insulin and the spectrum of healthy all the way to the disease state of type two diabetes. This spectrum has four stages. First, we have healthy insulin receptors that are very responsive to insulin being released in our body and they allow our blood sugar, you know, that food we just ate to enter our body’s cells and do what it’s supposed to do. That’s the state of health that we want to be in. Then we start to see in stage two, higher levels of insulin on a continual basis. So every once in a while is not a big deal.

But when we are continually day after day after day seeing high levels of insulin, and this is usually due to diet and lifestyle, then we start to see a problem and we’ll talk about that more in a minute. Then the third stage is where we actually enter the stage of pre-diabetes where our lab values are elevated and are detectable on blood tests. But we haven’t quite reached the level in our lab work to indicate diabetes. Then stage four comes the official diagnosis of type two diabetes. Over time, this will then create blood vessel complications leading to a risk of heart disease, stroke, heart attacks, vision decline, even blindness, kidney failure or nerve damage, and so much more. So you can see that although this disease is extremely common, type two diabetes is not something that you want to have. And while type two diabetes is something that every human is at risk for developing if they don’t follow lifestyle measures to prevent it, women with PCOS are at a lot higher risk of developing type two diabetes and at a much earlier age. That is why this episode is so important to me.

I know most of you are already aware of the risk of developing type two diabetes, and some of you already have been diagnosed with it. This episode is not about creating fear or trying to scare you about PCOS, but instead, it’s about bringing something that is scary into the light. And let’s talk about it today. What can we do to improve our health and our PCOS symptoms, no matter where we are on that spectrum of insulin and diabetes? And what stage you’re at? I vividly remember when I was first diagnosed with PCOS while struggling with fertility. I was in my late twenty s and I felt, aside from just the frustration of infertility, I felt devastated because I felt destined to be this overweight, childless, hairy diabetic. And it was literally this depressing fear that spurred me into action that became my PCOS journey. If you want to hear my full story, I will link to that in the show notes below. But the great news is, is that just as you can worsen along that spectrum of healthy insulin to type two diabetes, you can also improve and move in the opposite direction towards better health.

And that is what we are going to focus on today. Okay, so in order to really understand what’s going on here, let’s begin with insulin. We hear insulin with so many negative connotations, but insulin is a great thing. It’s actually what tells our body. It’s released when it senses blood sugar in the bloodstream and it tells our body to allow that blood sugar energy, the food that we just ate, into our cells to be used. It’s how we get energy into our body and then it goes into the cells and does that whole Krebs cycle and ATP thing that you learned about in high school chemistry. But it’s what provides us with the energy that we need to function, to feel alive, to feel energetic, and to have a good metabolism. It’s what gives our brain the energy to think and be sharp, and to not feel sluggish and lethargic. And it’s what gives our organs and muscles all of the energy and food that they need to allow us to stay healthy and strong. But when we overtax that insulin system in our body, that’s when it becomes a problem because it will stop listening to us as well as it did at first.

So as the body stops responding as well to that, blood sugar in our blood vessels, our cells, and our pancreas compensate by producing more insulin. Its kind of like your insulin levels are shouting, they’re saying Let me in, instead of just giving it a quiet, gentle knock. And more and more and more insulin is released until our body finally responds. This is where we start to see problems with the insulin effect. PCOS is kind of in that stage two on the spectrum of healthy to type two diabetes. When we start to see high levels of insulin on a regular basis due to what we are eating, it creates all sorts of different side effects in our bodies. And these include things like increased weight gain or resistance to losing weight. It also increases our testosterone, which can lead to LH and SSH ratio problems, which creates ovulation problems, period problems, and possibly cysts on your ovaries. It can also start to create additional inflammation in the body. Also, that increased testosterone can lead to acne, hair loss, and increased hair growth on the face. And all of this can be happening long before your doctor would say that your labs indicate insulin resistance because again, this is a spectrum, there was normal body function and then it starts to struggle.

And this can be happening over a progression of years. When you are young, like in your twenty s and thirty s, your body is doing its best to compensate for lifestyle, for diet, for what’s going on in your body, even though it has already started along this spectrum towards type two diabetes. And that is why you’re seeing symptoms even if your insulin and glucose labs are otherwise considered normal. This is where a lot of the confusion comes in. This is where women have been told they are not insulin resistant, they do not have prediabetes. And they don’t understand then what to do because they think, well, that part of my body is fine. Then we start to enter the realm of insulin resistance. So as we progress along that spectrum, we start to get to stage three. This occurs when our body has been pumping out excess insulin for so long that the cells in our brain and all of our body tissues in our heart and every body system are not accepting that signal of insulin anymore. And it starts to lead to the pancreas doing its best by pumping out really large magnitudes of insulin.

Now, at this point, we could start to see this elevation in our lab work, our blood work. We may not see blood sugar elevation yet at this point, but if we did an insulin tolerance test, we could see elevated insulin response. Your hemoglobin will likely be normal, your fasting glucose will likely still be normal because again, your body is still pumping out enough insulin to keep your blood sugar under control. That is a huge takeaway from today. If your doctors are only testing glucose or hemoglobin ANC, they will miss this stage of your body moving along the spectrum towards type two diabetes. The only way that you’re going to be able to detect that insulin resistance at this point is an insulin tolerance challenge, or perhaps a fasting insulin or random insulin. If you have previous lab work to compare it to, to be able to start seeing those numbers creeping up from where they were in the past. This is that zone where your body is definitely struggling, but labs are still a bit vague, and it will continue until those labs become less and less vague and the numbers do indeed start to indicate insulin resistance and type two diabetes.

So here we are trying to see that the body is burning out, and we’re seeing this at a younger and younger age, especially with women with PCOS. This used to be kind of like sixty s. And we are seeing it in the general population, not just with PCOS, much younger, forty s, fifty s. And then with women with PCOS, we’re starting to see this in the 30s. So women in their 20s, usually have their body compensating still quite well. This is general. It doesn’t mean you can’t get type two diabetes. I have even seen women with PCOS in their 20s dealing with diabetes already, but that is rare. The 30s, though, it’s becoming more and more common because it’s not being addressed early enough. And that’s why I feel like this episode is so important, is to bring that awareness. Most physicians will start you on medications when they start to see that sign of insulin resistance if they’re testing for it appropriately. But if they haven’t already, once they start to see that your blood sugar levels are going up, like, you’re starting to really show that prediabetes, they will definitely start to you on medications, and medication is definitely needed at that point.

So, little caveat disclaimer here. Well, type two diabetes prediabetes has the insulin effect. Any of this spectrum is very responsive to lifestyle changes. The damage that extra blood sugar can do in your body if left unchecked without enough insulin. It’s really important to go ahead and start medication if recommended by your doctor. We’re going to have an episode coming up about metformin, and it will give a little bit more clarity on when it’s kind of optional and when it’s not. And this is something where, although you may be able to wean off that medication well, if you don’t tolerate one medication, well, there are other medications that you can try instead. All of those risk factors of developing an eye disease, heart disease, neuro disease, and so forth are going to be decreased by starting medication if needed. So, while I highly recommend a lifestyle natural approach to dealing with diabetes, prediabetes is the risk of diabetes. You definitely don’t want to only do that if you’re farther along on the spectrum and need medication, at least for a while, or in some amount while you get that back under control, or even after you improve. You may still need some degree of medication and that doesn’t mean it’s a failure.

That medication is there to assist you in keeping your body functioning as best we can, but you will do so much better if you incorporate the lifestyle changes as well. OK, little caveat disclaimer over, but I just wanted to go ahead and point that out because while I focus on the natural approach, I highly recommend the medical approach when it comes to insulin and diabetes when warranted. Okay, but the whole point of this episode is that I often hear people talking about type two diabetes as if it’s just part of our society. And unfortunately, although it is so common and more and more people are getting it every year and younger and younger people are getting it every year, it’s not normal just because it’s common as a society. Our lifestyle and eating patterns have changed so much in the last 50, or 60 years. It’s beginning to have an effect on us as a whole, especially women with PCOS because we are already so prone to insulin resistance and inflammation. And then when you add in the now common lifestyle and eating of the Western society, it just puts us at such high risk for type two diabetes.

Alright, so there you have it. That is the process of developing type two diabetes. And you may be anywhere along that spectrum, but now I am an extremely practical person and I really appreciate someone giving me the heads up on what’s coming in my direction because it’s just retrospectively. I’m like, why didn’t anyone clue me in? And in this case, I wanted to give you a heads up, a full understanding of the insulin, the risk factors, and all of that. But more importantly, let’s talk about how to prevent and reverse this process. So as we understand what’s going on in our bodies now, we can start to decide what is right for us. What do we want from our life? What do we want from our health? And to what degree are we wanting to manage and take care of our health? There’s no right or wrong answer here. Information is power because it lets us know what’s going on. And then there’s no should, there’s no shame, there is no any of that. All we have to do then is figure out what we want from our body, and what we want from our life, and then we can take the steps to work towards that.

But until we understand the risks ahead, it’s hard to say, okay, wait, this really matters and I need to devote time and energy towards it, even if it’s not easy or what I want to be doing today. That wake-up call to me that I did not want to be overweight and getting more and more and more overweight. I didn’t want to be a type two diabetic. I didn’t want all the PCOS symptoms, and I definitely wanted to heal my fertility. That was a huge wake-up call, and it got me started on my health journey. And the coolest thing that I think there is about PCOS as well, we feel so bogged down that it can feel like it’s too much sometimes. That is the spiral going downwards. But as soon as we start making our health that priority, as soon as we realize, okay, wait, wait, this matters, these are the steps I need to take. We can start that upward spiral and it starts to feel easy. It starts to feel doable. And that’s how I started to feel as I got my health journey started and I had my three kids.

But that health and the way that I felt and the energy and all of that remained something that I wanted to keep in my life. And I got to continue along that health journey. And so this is your opportunity to think about how you want to feel. What do you want in your life? And how can you go about creating that? Because the cool thing with this whole spectrum of insulin to type two diabetes is that it is reversible. Okay, so how do we actually go about preventing and decreasing our risk of type two diabetes, especially when we have PCOS? The two big factors are going to be nutrition and exercise, while other lifestyle factors such as managing stress and making sure that we create a good environment for our bodies are also really important and can really boost our success with nutrition and exercise. Those are going to be the two biggest factors. But I can see you. I can hear you rolling your eyes with this one. And I know because we’ve all heard it before, right? We’ve all heard that we need to eat better and we need to exercise more.

And that advice has really been overdone, and it feels really burned out. It does to me as well. But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be extreme in order, like I was saying, to see that downward spiral reverse and start being an upward spiral toward health, small changes make a huge difference. We’re not talking about ultra fitness here. That can feel really unattainable when you’re feeling stuck with PCOS. Now, it is not unattainable. I will tell you that it’s 100% attainable if that’s what you want. But I know when I was sitting in this position of getting diagnosed and feeling like I was just destined to be this overweight, hairy, childless diabetic, being ultra fit felt completely unattainable. And if I could go back, what I would tell myself at that moment is that it wasn’t going to be as hard as I thought it was, and little changes would make huge differences. So the cool part about this is that you can really achieve this by still enjoying events with friends. By still enjoying the occasional indulgence. But setting up your day to day and your week-to-week with really healthy choices so that you’re getting a good amount of protein.

So that you’re getting fruits and vegetables. And that you’re minimizing the sugar spikes and the sugary processed foods throughout the week. And the movement we talked about in other episodes, getting the physical exercise that you need. There are two episodes on it. I will link to those in the show notes below. But this is less about spending hours in the gym, it’s more about getting your body moving, getting that circulation, and actually feeling really good in your body by getting stronger and giving yourself that self-care of movement. And I know that sounds straightforward, it really, truly is that simple. It’s not necessarily easy to make those habit changes. So if you need extra support, if you are needing assistance with that, I encourage you to go and find me on Instagram, where I will post other helpful tips where you can learn more and more about how you can get assistance with your PCOS. But it really is that simple, and that is the exciting thing when it comes to reversing and preventing diabetes and that insulin effect in your PCOS. So there you have it, my friend. I hope that helps you give you a better understanding of type two diabetes and how it can develop, as well as helping you feel energized and hopeful, knowing that you have the power to prevent it and to transform your health because you can live life on your terms.

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, and you don’t have to always be crazy rigid in your health journey to keep these risks under control. The first step is awareness, and then the knowledge and understanding so that you can take the steps now to reduce your risk of this complicated disease. If you have any additional questions on this topic or other topics of the PCOS Repair podcast, I would love to continue the conversation over on Instagram. You can find me at Nourished A Healthy and I look forward to chatting with you over there. And until next time, be sure to tap the subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform so that you’ll get notified each week when the next topic of PCOS health becomes available. And until the next week, bye for now.

Did you know that studies of PCOS epigenetics have shown that our environment can either worsen or completely reverse our PCOS symptoms? I believe that although PCOS makes us sensitive to our environment, it also makes us powerful. When we learn what our body needs and commit to providing those needs, not only do we gain back our health, but we grow in power just by showing up for ourselves.

This is why I’ve created a guide for you to get started.

My PCOS Fertility Meal Guide can be found in the show notes below. I want to show you how to create an environment that promotes healing while still being able to live a life that you enjoy. This guide is completely free, so go get your copy now so that you can step into the vision that you have for your life and for your health.

30:48.9 – 57:09.5 Episode #62: Sweet Truth: Identifying PCOS-Friendly Sweeteners and Avoiding the Harmful Ones

One of the areas that I struggled with the PCOS nutrition was finding a sweetener that I felt good about, that I enjoyed the taste of, and I felt good about consuming. I didn’t feel like it was a compromise, and I wanted something that allowed me to enjoy things like coffee with a little bit of sweetener on a regular basis while maintaining a healthy PCOS lifestyle. Today we are going to dive into all the different types of sweeteners and considerations as you discover which ones work best for you, your body, and your hormone health. So let’s get started.

You’re listening to the PCOS Repair podcast, where we explore the ins and outs of PCOS and how to repair the imbalances in your hormones naturally with a little medical help sprinkled in. Hi, I’m Ashlene Korcek. With many years of medical and personal experience with polycystic ovarian syndrome, it is my joy to watch women reverse their PCOS as they learn to nourish their body in a whole new way. With the power of our beliefs, our mindset, and our environment, and the understanding of our genetics, we can heal at the root cause.

Welcome back to the PCOS repair podcast. I’m really excited about today’s topic because I think you’re going to walk away with some really clear action steps of new sweeteners to try, see what works for you, and some new considerations on what things to put a lot of emphasis on, and what things to be less concerned about. First of all, I want to start out by talking about sweeteners, sugars, things like that, and how they affect PCOS. So a couple of considerations, and we’ve talked about these in other episodes, so I’m just going to touch on why this topic is important in this regard. When it comes to sugar, like table sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup, any calorie based sweetener. One of the concerns here with PCOS is that PCOS is so insulin sensitive, or in a lot of cases insulin resistant. So insulin is a big part of it. When I say insulin sensitive, it’s so finicky, like we need to be careful with our insulin and even if currently your insulin is not a problem, so much research shows that women with PCOS have a much higher tendency of moving along that diabetic spectrum. Starting with just having a higher insulin effect all the way to creating insulin resistance and then type 2 diabetes and so whether or not you have any indication that there’s an issue there, I think it’s important to just be mindful of the fact that that is a big risk for women with PCOS and so as we choose what sweeteners and treats and sugars to include in our diet on a regular basis, we want to find ones that are not going to spike our blood sugar because the issue here is that as we repeatedly spike our blood sugar, we can wear out our insulin system and before we even wear out our insulin system, our hormones can be affected by eating foods that spike our blood sugar and lead to large amounts of insulin being released into our bloodstream over and over and over throughout the day, throughout the week, month, year, and so on. That where our hormones are responding to that insulin being present and becoming less balanced and less responsive to our body as a whole. There are many things we can do to improve our insulin sensitivity, to reduce the amount of insulin that our body produces when eating certain foods. But overall, those type of foods are not going to be assisting us in maintaining our root cause health and that goes for people that even don’t have PCOS but we just know with PCOS, we’re that much more sensitive. The other concern that I have with certain sweeteners, as well as regular sugars that we think of, such as, again, brown sugar, table sugar, maple syrups, all the different types of mainstream high calorie based sweeteners, but also including the non caloric ones like Splenda, Aspartame, Sweet and Low. Those ones that we see in a restaurant when we order coffee that they bring to us in a little container that are pink and blue and yellow. Those ones don’t have calories as in your body doesn’t see them as something to create energy with. However, there are some studies that show they may have a negative impact on our insulin. In fact, a lot of studies show that people that drink diet sodas, so that are filled with these these items actually have a higher rate of obesity or as high. The studies are mixed, but definitely showing that it did not cure the overweight issues for those individuals that were drinking diet sodas. There’s a lot of convoluted information there. Does it actually spike our insulin a little bit? Does it just train our taste buds to crave sweet? Are there chemicals in there that are leading to difficulty losing weight and so on? With these artificial sweeteners, my concern with them is that one, they’re highly processed, and so that’s always going to be a little bit more inflammatory to our bodies. They may have some insulin spiking effects, which is going to not be great for our hormones. Overall, the foods that we typically put them into are usually also quite processed. These sweeteners are also quite a bit sweeter than regular table sugars.

We are training our taste buds by consuming these artificial sweeteners like Splendor, Aspartame, Sweet & Low. We’re training our taste buds to crave really intense sweeteners. One of the things that I think women go through when they do my PCOS detox is that they are actually retraining their taste buds to taste food in its more natural form. When food is in a more natural form like a berry, it doesn’t taste as sweet to us as all of these artificial sweeteners that we may have consuming before, and it can taste bland but over time, as we reduce the amount of other sweeteners that we’re eating, we start to actually appreciate the sweetnessness and the flavor of a strawberry or raspberry or other fruits, other foods, and those flavors become a lot more enjoyable and we don’t need the others, like sweeteners and artificial foods as much. We don’t crave them. They still taste good. But sometimes they will actually start to taste overly sweet or overly chemicalized, depending on what food you’re eating. Those are things that can happen over time as we move towards a more whole foods, natural form of the food that we’re eating.

When we’re looking at creating a lifestyle, it really always comes back to it needs to be sustainable, it needs to be enjoyable, and it needs to not be overly restrictive while providing nourishment and not providing detriment to our PCOS hormones. Enjoying our food and enjoying things with a little bit of sweetness is part of a lifestyle. If we ignore this part, most of the time we find it’s unsustainable. It’s really important to find what are the things that matter to you and to continue to search for that best way for you to enjoy what you want. For me, I really enjoy a morning cup of coffee and I like it to be slightly sweet. It doesn’t have to be a whole vanilla latte or a mocha or something where it’s very sweet. It doesn’t have to be an iced frappuccino but I do like to have a coffee I like the taste of the coffee, so I buy really high quality organic coffee. There’s a family-owned business in Canyon Beach, Oregon, where my grandma lives. So I grew up going there and there’s a coffee shop there that creates just the most delicious coffee. It’s not overly acidic it has just this amazing flavor. So I have it shipped to my house. So I found a coffee that I like how it’s produced. I love how it tastes and it’s a little bit of a splurge but at the same time, I don’t need to add a lot to it to make it taste good. I add a little bit of cream and I add a little bit of sweetener. We’re going to get into which sweetener I prefer and which sweeteners I have tried over time as we go through this episode. But that was something that to me, I was like, this is important to me. I want to be able to enjoy a morning cup of coffee. So as you decide through your lifestyle what things are important to you, consider what things do you want to continue on a regular basis, like a morning cup of coffee. Now, if you like to have a sweet treat and want to have a dessert every now and then, you don’t have to find a complete alternative to that. You can enjoy normal desserts on an intermittent basis as it fits into your hormone health. So as your hormone health improves, one, you actually might crave them less, but two, you might actually be able to tolerate them better, you’re going to learn to really truly enjoy a couple bites as compared to maybe the whole thing. You’ll find your own balance of how you fit that into your life. This is not about having to cut out all other kinds of sugar, but how do we know which ones are good choice for us and what’s out there in options for us? Then if we think about the types of sugars, we have all of the mainstream sweeteners. This is going to include things like table sugar, all of the ones that there’s actually, I have a full list and I’ll try to put it in the show notes for you. But these are the things like rice syrup, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, really all of the different kinds of sugars that you’re going to see on nutrition labels. Then you’ll see people sweeten things with things like fruit. So maybe they do a date puree or even any sort of dried fruit, things like that that people are using and they’re pureeing them and they’re using it as a sweetener in a lot of recipes. You’ll see people do that. That still counts as sugar because you’re using basically just a fruit sugar at that point.

All of the artificial sugars. So this can be all of the ones that are non caloric, like we mentioned, aspartame, Splenda, Sweet and Low are some of the main ones. There’s some other ones that are less commonly seen. Then there’s ones that are newer and we see a lot of in things that are Keto friendly. So it’s going to be things like Erythritol. We see a lot of Stevia, which is a more natural choice and then a new one that we see a lot of is monk fruit. Of each of these, I think that it’s important to mention, the last few that I mentioned, monk fruit, erythritol and stevia, have not been extremely well studied. There are a few studies on them, I think most of the studies out there on them are not very conclusive. We’ll talk about that in a second but the ones that have been very well studied are ones like Splenda, Aspartame, and Sucralose. They’ve been studied for risks of Alzheimer’s, risks of cancer and the bottom line is that even at enormous amounts of consumption, there is no conclusive evidence that they are the cause of these things. Now, that doesn’t mean they’re not, and you have to take everything with a grain of salt. Just because they don’t cause cancer doesn’t mean that they are then healthy. But I do want to make a point of… I’ve worked with a lot of women who are really struggling to cut out having a diet Coke during the day or really love ice tea, but they like to put some Splenda in their iced tea. These are things where while they’re probably not your best choice, if you are buying something somewhere, like if you’d like to go to Starbucks and you like to get a green iced tea and you like them to put a Splenda in it, you can try having them switch to Stevia in the raw because most Starbucks carry that option. But at the same time, it may really affect your case because Stevia is a bit bitter. If that is something that really helps you cut your cravings in the afternoon, I think it’s worth noting that there is not a ton of research that shows that these are as awful as we tend to demonize them to be in the health and wellness space. However, if you don’t already use them, there are some better options and if you’re using options at home, there are less and better options to experiment with. But when you’re out and about, if getting a Starbucks green tea or black tea is something that helps you through your afternoon and you get that at lunch and then you enjoy it over the next hour or two, there are worse things. There’s a lot worse things for your PCOS health and letting yourself have something that’s otherwise fairly inconsequential, may be what keeps you from over-snacking, keeps you from having an energy slump, and keeps you well hydrated. I mean, there’s some great benefits to just drinking lots of fluids and as you go in towards your evening, if it makes you feel better and you’re enjoying your day better, that all needs to be taken into account as we look at what we’re doing. Now, if you’re thinking about currently at Starbucks, you get a green tea, iced tea, like a venti green tea, iced tea, and you have them put a pump of sweetener in it, that is just pure sugar that they’ve made into a simple syrup. So switching to something like Splenda or Equal or something like that would be a much better choice than the pump of syrup. Those are things where we think about the best, okay, and not ideal those are things that you want to look at. We don’t want to do the not ideal on a daily basis. We want to stick with the best on a daily basis. Some okay options, but we really want to not have the not ideal on a daily basis. Then as you look at the newer sweeteners like I was talking about that we’ve seen a lot, they’re not new, but we’ve seen them more available in grocery stores. So they’re more available to consumers of Monk fruit, stevia, and Erythritol. A study was published earlier this year that talked a lot about erythritol and the dangers of it to heart disease and increased risk of stroke through clotting. So a couple of things that I was listening to another expert, and then as I read through this study. This study was very poorly done. I think, you can’t ever take a study and say it’s not true, but this study does not prove in my opinion that Erythritol has any increased risk of heart disease or stroke. Here’s why first of all, they looked at people who consume Erythritol and on a regular basis. They’re getting a lot, not extensive amounts, but they’re consuming it regularly in various forms, various drinks. So they may be getting more than the average person on a day. So they chose these people, then they followed these people for I think it was three years and it was several thousand people, and they were all older so these were people that were at an age where cardiovascular events or stroke heart attack type of thing was possible. So we weren’t following 20 year olds, 30 year olds, 40 year olds. They were following people that were primarily in their 50s and 60s and then they just counted how many cardiac events occurred. The problem with this is they did not compare it to what would the average for a population that was not being studied to also have cardiac events. So while the percentage of cardiac events was definitely high and alarmingly high if it was truly linked to erythritol but it was not compared properly to what if we took erythritol out of the equation and we just looked at the general population of that age bracket what would we find? In that sense, the data is not useful. The other consideration is then they wanted, because they found this, in my opinion, not conclusive data, they basically then said, Oh, well, let’s take a look at how come Erythritol is causing clotting, then they started to use in a ridiculously high amount that would not be what the average person would consume anywhere. They wouldn’t consume anywhere close to that on a weekly basis, let alone a daily basis. They were giving this as if it was a daily basis and looking at the effects of platelet clotting. They found that there was higher rate of clotting. They just concluded that that was why there was a higher risk of cardiac events. You can see that this was a poorly thought out strategy of how to look at a sample and take actual information from it. Yes, it should be studied more but I don’t feel like this study that has hit the news and has gotten everybody talking about Erythritol, really actually gives us any conclusive information at all. I think it’s very, very worthless. It may shed light that maybe we should research this topic, but it itself didn’t give us any conclusive information.

The stevia definitely has some areas where research has maybe indicated that there may be some concern with it. However, again more of a slight something or rather that indicated further research. Anytime there’s a non conclusive finding and it suggests further research, what I would take away from that is don’t just go crazy on this, but it’s probably not significantly harmful to where when you think about what else we’re consuming and exposed to on a daily basis, this isn’t something that I need to worry about in small amounts. That’s where I take away from that because I don’t have a research lab, so I can’t dive in and do the extra research myself. But then I definitely keep an eye out for new information that’s coming out on those topics.

Okay, so as we get into the other options, one of my favorite that has been around for a long time, but again, was not readily available, and I will include a link to the one that I use in the show notes. I think that Monk Fruit is a newer one. I don’t know how I feel about these new ones. There’s really no research about Monk Fruit. It appears to be a more natural option, although we have to keep in mind that it is still processed. But the one that I have become really interested in and been using a lot is one called allulose. Now, unlike other sweeteners, non caloric sweeteners this is actually basically a fiber and it is less sweet than table sugar. You actually need to add more, which feels really weird I’ve been used to monk fruit or erythritol or even stevia where a little goes a long way. With allulose, I’m doing about three times the amount that I would have done of those I have a whole keeping teaspoon in my coffee and it’s still actually way less sweet than if I had had a third of that of like monk fruit and erythritol so this one is definitely one that you would use more of. It does not cook as well because it will turn brown. It cooks just fine, but it can make foods brown, so keep that in mind. But this is one where it’s very natural, it’s a fiber, and although it’s still processed to be able to make it into something that can be used as a sugar. This one that I think is probably a best choice. When I get it in a big bag of loose granules from Amazon. There’s two different ones. There’s one that’s pure allulose. I actually opt for one that’s monk fruit and allulose because the allulose isn’t that sweet and so I feel like the monk fruit and allulose combination is a little bit nicer. So that’s one that I have found to be really enjoyable. It really does the trick in my coffee, and it’s one that I can feel good about consuming on a regular basis. And again, I’ll put those links in the show notes below. So then this is where we have to think practically. So if we’re making something at home, it’s really easy to switch to things like monk fruit, stevia, allulose, or even Erythritol, or a combination of those because sometimes I like to just hedge my bets. We don’t know which one we’ll find things out about in the future, so not consuming too much of one or the other is always a good idea and on that note, I think it’s always important to remember, we do want to train our taste buds to not be overly needing of sweet food. Tempering it down a bit and how sweet we make our foods is actually a really good habit our taste buds will start to pick up on the gentle sweeteners. It doesn’t have to be so extreme it just takes a couple of weeks for us to readjust and recalibrate to that with our taste buds.

When we’re creating our own foods, it’s easy just to have these type of sweeteners in our pantry but what about if we’re buying foods? When we’re buying foods, the cool thing is that there are more and more and more that are sweetened with monk fruit or stevia or Erythritol. The protein powders that I get are sweetened with Monk fruit, and that’s really a nice change to start to see things like that. One of them that I get is sweetened with Monk fruit. Another one that I really like, if you get the flavored versions, they are sweetened with coconut sugar, which again is a very natural sugar. It does still spike your insulin, so be aware of that, even though it’s natural. Still a downside there. However, the ratio of it in the protein powder is so low and the protein levels are so high that it’s still a great option. When you’re buying foods, though, and you’re out and about, that’s where I want to say you have to look at the overall big picture of your lifestyle an iced tea at Starbucks where you have them put a little bit of Splenda in it is way better than getting the frappuccino at Starbucks. When you’re looking at finding ways of enjoying your life, living your life, it’s a balance. The point of this episode is to help you understand which sweeteners you want to really lean into, avoid impossible. No sweetener needs to be leaned into. When we talk about sweeteners, it’s something that we’re doing for enjoyment, bottom line. Sweeteners are not needed. They are there for enjoyment because lifestyle is about enjoying and making it something that we want to live, not have to endure.

A lot of healthy recipe creators use fruit as a sweetener. I have no problem with fruit for PCOS. I think it is loaded in nutrients. I do think that we do need to remember those that it does spike our glucose considerably and certain fruits more than others. When we’re using fruit as a sweetener, it is a more healthy nutrient dense option, but it doesn’t equal healthy for our formula. It doesn’t equal free range, that thing and so it’s really important to just keep that in the back of our mind because a lot of times we’ll see things that are sweetened with fruit. A big one that people will do is naturally sweetened with fruit on a label and if you go through and decipher what they put in there, they’re sweetening it with apple juice which is essentially just fructose, basically a less processed version of table sugar and so not really doing you any favors in that department. It sounds good for marketing, but just something to keep in mind that fruit as a sweetener may or may not be super great, you’ll see a lot of really healthy recipes like energy balls where they whiz-up dates, the amount of dates that they’re whizzing up, they might just put a cup of brown sugar in it. That would have been a lot easier, probably less expensive, and overall had a very similar effect on your glycemic index. So keep that in mind that just because it looks more healthy to do it that way doesn’t mean that for your hormones, your root cause metabolic hormones, that it really had a different net effect. So as we wrap up today, just to recap we have all of the sugars, all of the ones that you’re going to see on food labels that are going to spike your blood sugar, that are going to lead to release of insulin that is going to have to some degree a negative impact on your root cause health, whether it’s inflammatory because you have to remember sugar by itself is inflammatory.

The artificial sugars are probably quite inflammatory. The more we process things tend to be more inflammatory, as well as having the glycemic and the insulin effect of having things that spike our blood sugar which all caloric sweeteners will do. We’re finding that potentially even non caloric processed sweeteners like Splenda, Aspartame, and Sweet and Low could do and then we didn’t really get into this. But just to mention, because you may have heard something like this before, not 100 % conclusive evidence, but we’re seeing more and more that inflammatory effect of these sweeteners and sugars can have a real impact on the gut. I think that this is something that just hasn’t been conclusively studied, but we’re seeing it. So clearly as practitioners in the health and wellness space that we feel like it’s true. So I definitely want to make this point is that it creates a gut health problem to where we’re creating more and more inflammation in the body. And that in itself can increase our insulin response, can increase our metabolic dysfunction, which is, of course, going to make our PCOS root causes worse.

Then we have our more natural less studied, it’s important to remember that, less studied options like Monk fruit, Erythritol. Erythritol is not a natural one, but it’s a newer one. So I think of it in that sense it’s typically considered better than aspartame, fell into sweet and low, things like that. But again, less studied. So take it with a grain of salt and then stevia and then my favorite, allulose and then we have to balance that with what is it that we actually enjoy. So everyone’s going to have their own thing. For me, I wanted something for my coffee. I want something to be able to put in things like overnight oat or Chia pudding. I wanted something that I could use to just give a slight sweetness to foods that I cooked at home. If I make a salad dressing or a marinade, sometimes you just want something that’s a little bit sweet and things like maple syrup honey, although they’re considered natural and in some circles healthy options, they spike our blood sugar almost as much as regular table sugars.

Those are all things that we want to take into consideration and mold to what works for us as we continue on our PCOS healthy journey and be sure to check out the show notes for this section because I’m going to include a lot of links to things that I use and lists so that you can go through and get a better idea. In a few episodes, we’re going to be talking about decoding nutrition labels and starting to recognize all of the hidden sweeteners and sugars and insulin spiking substances and ingredients that are put in foods. So you’ll get a better understanding of that then. But for now, just learning all the different ways that sugar can hide in the foods that we’re eating so that we have a better idea of what we’re looking for and then also getting to explore some new options and some new ideas of how you can include some enjoyable sweeteners in the foods that you’re creating in your kitchen, as well as how to order and avoid as big of a sugar impact when you’re eating out or ordering beverages on the go. With that, if you have any questions or if there’s a sweetener that you heard about or something that you heard about that I didn’t specifically address here because I know this is a topic that is all over social media, all over the internet, on different opinions on which sweeteners or beverages or diet versus non diet are going to be a better choice, or you should avoid certain things altogether. And then it really comes down to what are the things that you enjoy? Like, if you really, truly enjoy a diet Coke but that’s your one splurge where does that fit into things for you? And do you feel like that’s something that you need to limit? Or are you feeling like that’s something where you have so many other things that you need to work on, and then people are telling you, you shouldn’t be drinking your diet Coke? That’s where we want to look at that.

If you have any questions or want to continue this conversation, you know where to find me. I’m over on Instagram @Nourishedtohealthy. Send me a DM. I love connecting with you there. Until next time, bye for now.

Did you know that studies of PCOS epigenetics have shown that our environment can either worsen or completely reverse our PCOS symptoms? I believe that although PCOS makes us sensitive to our environment, it also makes us powerful. When we learn what our body needs and commit to providing those needs, not only do we gain back our health, but we grow in power just by showing up for ourselves. This is why I’ve created a guide for you to get started. My PCOS fertility meal guide can be found in the show notes below. I want to show you how to create an environment that promotes healing while still being able to live a life that you enjoy. This guide is completely free, so go get your copy now so that you can step into the vision that you have for your life and for your health.

57:13.2 – 1:17:27 Episode #63: Leveraging Continuous Glucose Monitoring for Improved PCOS Wellness

Today, I’m really excited to share a tool that has revolutionized how I approach my PCOS Hormone Health and has also had a huge impact for the women that I work with to be able to get a real-time picture of what is going on with their blood sugar. I’m really excited to go over the benefits of working with a continuous glucose monitor in regards to getting a lot of amazing insights into your PCOS health. So let’s dive in.

You’re listening to the PCOS Repair Podcast where we explore the ins and outs of PCOS and how to repair the imbalances in your hormones naturally with a little medical help sprinkled in. Hi, I’m ashelen Korcek, and with many years of medical and personal experience with polycystic ovarian syndrome, it is my joy to watch women reverse their PCOS as they learn to nourish their body in a whole new way. With the power of our beliefs, our mindset, and our environment and the understanding of our genetics, we can heal at the root cause.

Welcome back to the PCOS repair podcast where today I’m really excited to be talking about continuous glucose monitoring. As always, I want to remind you that your PCOS is so unique. It’s because no one is the same. Our genetics are different, our environment is different, our lifestyle is different, our goals and our things that we want from our body are different, what we love to do is different, our likes, our dislikes, all of these things make up what is going to work for us and also the environmental impact that is on our body and how we have to deal with what’s going on in our personal lives. It’s so different for everyone. All of this creates an ecosystem that either supports or is difficult for our hormones to cope with. Each person is dealing with such different things that not everything is going to be the same for everyone, which is why I find that a continuous glucose monitor is an amazing tool for women with PCOS. While the monitor is looking at glucose, and we’re going to look at exactly what the CGM or the continuous glucose monitor is in just a minute, but when I’m looking at and reading my results on a daily basis of what my CGM is telling me, I am able to see how a specific food impacted my blood sugar.

I’m also able to see over the week or two how that specific food affected my blood sugar differently if I had a poor night’s sleep versus a good night’s sleep versus have I exercised or have I not exercised? Also, what did I pair that food with? Did certain things make a difference? This gives me so much insight into one of the questions that I get repeatedly from women with PCOS and a huge PCOS debate among experts. That is, are carbs good or bad for PCOS? Well, first of all, we have to remember that carbs are not good or bad. There are carbs that are really beneficial for our PCOS. I mean, vegetables are carbs, right? and then fruit also is up for debate. Is fruit good for PCOS? Well, fruit is filled with nutrients and vibrant color. All of that vibrant color tells us how good these are for us. They’re full of antioxidants and so many great things. Also, then there’s the foods that we enjoy that make life more enjoyable, but also make life easier, such as the more refined carbohydrates, the grains, the legumes, the processed foods. This is all on a spectrum of what are extremely beneficial to which things may be less beneficial, but are also important to determine how and where they fit into our lifestyle.

As we look at all of that, because we are all unique, because our different genetics, because of our different environment, because we have different primary root causes of our PCOS, all of this carb conversation is not specific to each individual person and so when we’re able to take a look at a continuous glucose monitor and see how is this affecting me personally? And when we can learn to interpret those results and tweak our environment and what we’re eating in order to optimize our blood sugar and therefore our insulin, we can really have a tremendous impact on our metabolic health. And by impacting our metabolic health for the better, we can improve our endocrine and our androgens and therefore our PCOS sex hormones like our progesterone, our estrogen, our testosterone, and create an ecosystem that is helping our hormones to thrive, while also understanding what we can include and be less restrictive or less fearful about what we’re including in our diet because we can really truly see in real time how it’s working. You can see the carb, sugar, glycemic index, all of these topics that we talk about. It is not a one size fits all, nothing about health should be a one size fits all. We need to look at each individual person where they’re currently at. It’s not even a one size fits all for each person. Where I’m at today, my needs and everything are very different as I approach 30 than they were in my 20s. They’re very different as I have different health goals than when I was trying to get pregnant. All of these things create a very different situation of how I need to approach my hormone health. This tool is allowing us to dive in a little bit deeper without constant laughs, without constant finger pokes, and have a visual of what’s going on. Now, it’s not the end-all, be-all, the only tool you’ll ever need and doesn’t answer all of our questions to PCOS, but it definitely answers some pivotal questions, especially when it comes to how our carbohydrates and how other foods maybe are you combining with the carbohydrates. How is that affecting your body and is it working for you or do we need to make adjustments?

One of the things that I always like to remind people is that this is a lifestyle. We’re not trying to just do something for a couple weeks, It needs to be sustainable. This is a tool that can help us to determine what things we’re doing that are really impactful, either positively or negatively, as well as what things are we maybe putting a lot of effort in because we think they’re really helpful and maybe they’re not as helpful as we thought. Certain foods, we think that they’re really healthy and lo and behold, they’re actually affecting our blood sugar negatively. These are things where it’s like, Oh, well, if that’s the case, then I’m going to skip that and do more of this and we can really see which things are working for us and just because one thing isn’t being as… Maybe one thing is causing some problems in our blood sugar. That doesn’t mean that we have to throw it out altogether, but it does help to be aware of it and to know which things to lean into and which things to lead for special occasions.

How does a CGM work? This is an important question because all of this sounds really great. We would love this information, but how exactly does a continuous glucose or a CGM as a tool work? It is currently in the US, and I think in most countries, a prescription. I have gotten mine from my physician. I’m going to let you know later in the podcast how you can go around that because there are some ways that you can get it without a prescription. But for the most part, people have gotten them through prescriptions. They are not well covered by insurance. That’s one of the problems with going through a prescription. Unless you have type 2 diabetes, they may or may not be covered by your insurance. They can be fairly expensive. They are becoming more and more and we’ll talk about in a minute, more and more available even outside of the US. We’re being able to get this type of tool for women with PCOS that may not actually be under the criteria of type two diabetes yet, which is amazing to finally be able to have some of these preventative tools and tools to help us prevent bigger diseases earlier when we can actually do something to prevent them. The way it works is you get this little device and it goes in the back of your arm, in the soft part between your elbow and your shoulder.

It has a little apparatus and you just clean the area with alcohol. If you go to my Instagram page, you’ll see a video of me applying it. It’s just a quick press it on and it makes a popping noise. It does not hurt at all. The popping noise makes it sound like it should have hurt, but it doesn’t hurt at all. Then the little probe goes, it’s very small, it’s very flexible, it’s not scary looking at all, but it goes straight into the interstitial of our arm. That’s basically the space between everything. It’s not in the muscle, it’s not in the skin, it’s not in the blood system. It’s in that softer, fluid tissue underneath our skin. From there, it’s able to actually get continuous reads of what our blood sugar is doing. We get a curve throughout the day of just this continuous, our blood sugar comes up, our blood sugar goes down. We can see what it’s doing while we’re sleeping, and we can get a really great picture of what our blood sugar is doing. When our blood sugar is going up, we can assume that our insulin is being released and depending on how fast and how abruptly our glucose drops, how much insulin we were getting, and so we can make some assumptions that then help us to see what is going on in our metabolic health.

This is an amazing tool because right there on your phone, you connect it to your app. It’s super easy. It doesn’t take a lot of technology know-how, and you just basically make an account. You get the app on your phone, create an account. You say, Scan new device. You hold it up to your CGM, and there you go. You’re paired, and there you’re ready to use it, you’re ready to see your data, super simple and it allows you to then see when you eat a certain thing for breakfast. What is your blood sugar do? How does your blood sugar respond after that meal? Does it crash? Then you get to do this really cool thing where you get to correlate it with how you feel. Sometimes I like to say, Okay, I’m starting to feel like I have amazing energy. Is that because I just shot my blood sugar super high? Because I’m getting this blood sugar high of energy right now. I’ll check and I’ll be like, Oh, actually, it’s not as high as I thought. That was actually a good meal choice because it made me feel really good, but at the same time, it didn’t over shoot my blood sugar.

Same thing. I’m starting to feel really low, I’m getting irritable, I’m getting crappy, did my meal drop my blood sugar? Am I hypoglycemic now? and on that rebound of needing another sugar fix. This allows you to help fine tune when and how your energy and how you feel in your body is correlating to your blood sugar and over time, you get really good at almost just knowing like, Oh, I’m spiking and I shouldn’t have eaten that, or I’m feeling really low and it’s probably because I need to eat something that has a little bit of carbohydrates in it and some protein to help withstand the energy curve. How do I recommend people use a CGM? Is this something that you should get and use forever? and how can you get it? First of all, I think that most people need a week or two of just creating a baseline. In this week or two, I don’t recommend that you do a great deal of tweaking. You just want to see where were you at. How were you doing? Maybe you’ve been at this PCOS healthy lifestyle for a while and you’re looking at areas that you could improve, maybe you’ve hit some plateaus and you’re wanting to make some further progress and you’re not sure where to go and you’re wondering if blood sugar is still one of the issues that you’re having a hang-up on. Or maybe you are being told that you have insulin effect PCOS root cause? You take the PCOS root cause quiz, but you’re not convinced that you are, but you’re not sure where else to look. This is a great way to really look into how is your blood sugar responding to the foods that you’re eating. Are the foods that you’re eating actually as healthy and supportive of your blood sugar as you think they are. So get it, use it for two weeks, okay? Don’t try to change a whole lot. Just collect the data. Let it run through several of your meals, keep track of what meals you ate when. It doesn’t have to be very detailed. You can just say, I stopped and got this for lunch, or I made this for dinner. You know what’s in it. You know the basics of what it is. You just need to have a memory of when you look at the curves of insulin spikes over two weeks, which ones were significant, what foods had you just eaten, etc.

After two weeks, then it’s time to start making some adjustments to your lifestyle environment that are going to assist you in improving your blood sugar response. You can notice at this point was sleep an issue? Was stress an issue? These are all things you can jot down even in the app. You can make little notes. You can see right where they landed, regardless of what your blood sugar is doing. Then you can look at how they all line up together. Then you can see, Oh, this was actually a blood sugar spike because I had just gotten a phone call about something that had gone wrong at work and I freaked out about it and I had this huge stress response to it because I actually hadn’t eaten anything for a little while. Those are all things that we can see as we look back over our two-week data gathering phase. As we begin to tweak it, we can start to see, okay, stress was minimally impactful. That’s not where I’m going to spend my time. But these meals that I ate, like breakfast say that I am eating are really spiking my blood sugar. I’m going to focus on breakfast for a little bit and I’m going to see if over the next couple of weeks of using my CGM, if my breakfast can not have as a breakfast spike and how that creates a better energy throughout the day if I can keep that morning blood sugar more balanced.

Typically, I’m having someone use this for maybe 2-3 months. I would say plan on three. You may take a small break in there somewhere, but plan on three months because it takes a little while to make all these little adjustments, see how things are changing and also it takes about three months to really improve that insulin sensitivity and so you’re going to start to see that it becomes easier to your blood sugar as you make these adjustments. Then I take breaks. I don’t have this thing on all the time. I don’t use it all the time, but I will do metabolic check-ins. I might do a month or two weeks of using it again and then take another break because I’m doing well. I’m like, I checked in. I’m like, What I’m eating is doing well. I am not having any specific huge spikes. I cleaned those up in the past and I’m sticking with it. I haven’t let things slide back in that I wasn’t aware of and my blood sugars are doing great. Fantastic. I don’t need to continue wearing it. I’ll check back in in a couple of months. Or if you’re like, Oh, you know what? I thought I was doing really great, but I must have backslid a little bit. I have a couple of things I need to clean up. Maybe you wear it for a couple of weeks that time, and then you take another break. It’s something that you can use intermittently as you feel like maybe you’ve hit a wall and you want to check back in with your blood sugar. However, or maybe you’re adjusting your diet a little bit. Maybe you’re changing up because something wasn’t agreeing with you super well and you wanted to make sure that as you make those adjustments, you’re not impacting your blood sugar negatively. Those are how I recommend using a CGM. Like I mentioned, you can get a CGM from your physician. You just ask them to write you a prescription and hopefully give you some refills. Hopefully your pharmacy has it in stock and hopefully your insurance covers it to some degree. Otherwise it will be, I think mine, if it was uncovered, would be over $100 per two-week device. My insurance does cover it and so it ends up being, I think, 75, which it still doesn’t cover it 100 %, but it covers it to some extent.

Then I have found a company called Veri, and I’m going to link to them in the show notes and you are welcome to go through them. They have a questionnaire and then that’s it. You can go actually, where I link you to, you can just go straight to purchasing it. The way I see this is that you can purchase a glucose monitor over the counter. I think at this point these are new enough that they just haven’t made them over the counter yet but if you have any questions or you’re starting something new, it’s always a good idea to contact your healthcare provider and ask them if they think this would be a good fit for you. But I do want you to know that you do not have to go through your insurance and the pharmacy of maybe or maybe not having it in stock and dealing with refills and all of that. This company can send it directly to your home and you can link it up to your phone at home and start monitoring your blood sugar as soon as you’re ready. So while any health adjustment change, new thing, it’s always recommended that you check with your health care provider.

This to me has been a much easier way than going around through the different pharmacies seeing who has it in stock and then trying to remind my practitioner to refill my prescription and so forth. I’m going to link to that in the show notes. Please be aware that it is an affiliate link, so I do get a small commission if you purchase through them. However, if you purchase through my link, because I want you to know exactly what to do, I want you to forward your receipt and I will send you a completely free guide about how to set your parameters and how to tweak and adjust and look at your readings to help understand them and interpret them and consider what things may or may not be beneficial as you alter them and create an environment that is more friendly to your PCOS hormones and your insulin response and because on a podcast, I can only share so much, I can’t show you visuals and go into things that make more sense when you can see them in front of you. I want to put on a free Masterclass because I really find this tool so helpful.

So if you think that this is something that you are interested in and you want to learn more, there’s going to be a link on the show notes page. I want you to go there and register for the Masterclass or you can watch it live or on the replay. I want you to be able to dive a little deeper into how this all works. I’ll show you how the app works. I’ll show you the video of me placing the CGM and how easy it is. I want to give you all of the ins and outs of it. And if you decide to use your CGM, I’ll have all the information there as well on how to go about getting the detailed information about what to do once you actually get started. I have them separated so that you can really learn. Do you want to do this? And then if you do, how to actually get started? What to look for? How to test your meals a little bit and see what’s working? Because sometimes we start eating and we’re like, I don’t really know what’s working or what’s not working. I give you some suggestions for maybe some meals to try to see, does this does it’s spike it? Does this does not spike it? And give you some insight as to what is going on. If it is, if it is. If you are having your sugar spikes to decipher, are these ones that you need to worry about or are these ones that are just minor? Then also, of course, most importantly, some of the considerations that you want to take on how to improve the sugar spikes, how to improve the frequency of them, the magnitude of them, so that you’re improving your insulin sensitivity as you move through creating meals that really nourish and sustain your body and give you better energy and improve that deep root cause metabolic health that’s going to lead to better PCOS hormones. We’re going to cover all of that in the masterclasses. Part one will be to really dive into how the CGM works a little bit more and show you more visuals about it. Then part two, if you decide to get started with the CGM, how to use it and interpret it and make it work for you.

So with that, I hope you found this topic helpful today. This is something that I have found to be mind-blowing and revolutionary in my understanding of what’s going on in my PCOS, especially as I’m pretty good at monitoring my blood sugar, I always have been. I’ve struggled with my blood sugar and insulin spike since I was in puberty. Right around age 13, I started to notice that I had issues with my insulin, although I didn’t have a very good name or understanding of it yet and I have learned since then to manage it very well. As I’ve approached 40, I’ve had to be a little bit more careful and to learn new ways of how my body is working post-kids and as I get a little bit older. And so each step of our life, we’re learning new things and this tool has been so helpful. I wish I had had it back in my 20s when I was trying to figure out my fertility. I wish I had had it so many times in the past where I was guessing, where I was sticking my finger several times a day trying to just see what my blood sugar was doing and trying to time it right to see if it was spiking or dropping and now I just can have a couple of weeks of data, and I love data. I hope that the scientist in you can see how amazing this tool can be and that you give it a try.

It is not crazy expensive for what you’re getting and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram and my direct messages. I’d be happy to talk about it further with you and ultimately help you decide whether or not it’s a good next step or a tool to add to your PCOS health journey.

And until next time, bye for now.

Did you know that studies of PCOS epigenetics have shown that our environment can either worsen or completely reverse our PCOS symptoms? I believe that although PCOS makes us sensitive to our environment, it also makes us powerful. When we learn what our body needs and commit to providing those needs, not only do we gain back our health, but we grow in power just by showing up for ourselves. This is why I’ve created a guide for you to get started. My PCOS Fertility Meal Guide can be found in the show notes below. I want to show you how to create an environment that promotes healing while still being able to live a life that you enjoy. This guide is completely free, so go get your copy now so that you can step into the vision that you have for your life and for your health.

1:17:31.10 – 1:44:24 Episode #84: Sweet Science: Glycemic Index and PCOS Dietary Strategies

PCOS is caused and worsened or improved by a combination of our genetics and how they play with our environment and so in today’s episode, we are going to dive into some research that discusses and dives into the intricacies of how our environment in regards to nutrition directly impacts our genetics of PCOS and how they play together to worsen or if we work with the nutrition to support and benefit our PCOS, how our nutrition and what we eat and what we consume can actually help us reverse our PCOS and balance our PCOS hormones. So with that, let’s go ahead and dive in.

You’re listening to the PCOS repair podcast where we explore the ins and outs of PCOS and how to repair the imbalances in your hormones naturally, with a little medical help sprinkled in. Hi, I’m Ashlene Korcek, and with many years of medical and personal experience with polycystic ovarian syndrome, it is my joy to watch women reverse their PCOS as they learn to nourish their body in a whole new way. With the power of our beliefs, our mindset, and our environment, and the understanding of our genetics, we can heal at the root cause.

Welcome back to the PCOS Repair podcast, where I’m really excited to be starting a series of research review. We’ll do these about once a month and I’m going to pick an article and we’re going to dive into what is some of the latest research on PCOS. All of these will be articles from the last couple of years, nothing from back over about five years ago because we know so much more now, and so much of the information out there on the web is outdated. Even so much of the information that you’ll get from your doctor in your doctor’s office is outdated because they learned this back in medical school and residency and when it comes to how we can support PCOS through lifestyle one, it is considered in literature, without a doubt, the best way to approach PCOS. So environmental changes our lifestyle adjustments. That is considered the gold standard, the best way to address PCOS and when you go to your doctor’s office, they may not be up to date on how to adjust your lifestyle. In fact, it’s not really their field of expertise to know that. So they may be able to help you with diagnosis, they can help you if you need medications or fertility treatment but when it comes to the lifestyle adjustments, let’s dive into some of the most recent research and find out what is being discovered and correlated in regards to PCOS and our lifestyle and environment.

The research article that we are going to be looking at today is called a glycemic index and glycemic load estimates in the dietary approach of polycystic ovarian syndrome and it’s by Mata and Pashu and several other researchers and you can find, I will put the link to this article, so you can actually read the article for yourself if you want to in the show notes below. Now, really important, this was not a specific study. This is a review of all the literature and so I love reviews because they kind of pull a bunch of different studies together to show us what’s going on overall in nutrition as compared to just looking at one thing. Now, the nice thing is when you go to the research article, if you like digging into this kind of thing, if you go to the research article, there will be references, and then you can follow the rabbit hole through all the different references that you want to and read more on specific things throughout the article. So with that, let’s go ahead and dive into the article itself.

So, first of all, like I said, this is a review of literature, so not a specific study that was conducted. I do want to point out that when it comes to nutrition, we have some significant limitations when it comes to research. So anytime we’re researching something, we need to have a length of time that’s reasonable in order to do an experiment, and we need to have subjects that are reasonable, and then we need to kind of take away all the variables. So when you think about the subject for PCOS, we could try to replicate this in rats or other animals. However, when it comes to all of the symptoms of PCOS, that isn’t very practical but when you look at the time frame and the restrictions that it would put on somebody to say, look, you have to eat this way. We don’t know if it’s the best way or not, but you have to eat this way for like 30 years. It’s very difficult to see where that would take us. So when we think about how insulin resistance to diabetes occurs, someone who is 20 and diagnosed with PCOS would essentially, to give us good data, have to eat a certain way until they were at least postmenopausal, to see how it affected their fertility throughout their fertile years and so this is not a reasonable study, basically, is what I’m getting at here and so, because it’s very difficult to create a reasonable study in nutrition, we are left with understanding, to the best of our ability, the pathophysiology, meaning the disease process of PCOS or any disorder for that matter, and then extrapolating to that nutrition that we have become aware of but again, you have to remember that this type of limitations on how we can study research kind of goes across the board, across the disease board. It’s not like if you were studying for hypertension that you could really create even a better study, it’s the same problems. How long are you going to make somebody do something? What you can do with something like cholesterol or diabetes or hypertension is someone who has this disorder. You could change their diet to various things for a couple of months, maybe a year, maybe two to three years but again, it’s very difficult to have a human subject follow a rigorous diet strictly enough, without any cheat meals and things like that in order to get good data.

So the information on nutrition, we have to realize is cloudy. So anyone who tells you blanket statements, this is how a nutrition works, tread lightly. While we have a lot of information about nutrition, we do have to also recognize the gaps of how 100% ironclad this information is. Okay, so I want to just kind of throw that out there as we talk about nutrition, because I think it’s very important, especially when we get into research, to realize that a research finding is not 100% fact. It’s research, it’s learning, it’s like cutting edge stuff, it’s not like the law of gravity, where we understand it, we have a formula, and it’s replicable every time. So it’s not that specific, it’s not that dependable. Okay, so basically what they’re looking at is they’re focusing on things like the fact that PCOS, the genetics, seem to be worsened and drawn out when it comes to things that create inflammation, things that worsen our insulin and glycemic control, and how that affects our hormones.

So, first of all, let’s just remind ourselves that polycystic ovarian syndrome, or PCOS, is like a puzzle with numerous pieces. According to the Rotterdam criteria for PCOS, it is defined by either biochemical hyper androgenism, which is going to be like lab values that show high androgens, or an indication of ovulation disturbances. Polycystic ovarian morphology on ultrasound, meaning that you may see cysts on the ovaries, not like one cyst, but that polycystic appearance on ovaries and you’re going to have, like, a picture that’s a collection of symptoms. So when we deal with a syndrome, it’s not this black and white. You have this, you don’t have this, et cetera. When we have a syndrome, it’s kind of like this mood that medicine presents with. So when you show up and you have a history and you have some clinical findings on labs or imaging, we kind of get this vibe that you have PCOS. That’s kind of how a syndrome is diagnosed, it’s not as black and white, it’s more of a picture that is similar to other pictures of PCOS, but it’s not what makes it so different from person to person. So we may see things like hirsutism, alopecia, acne, menstrual irregularities. We may see things like mood disturbances, fluctuations in weight, or difficulty managing weight, acne, all sorts of the regular symptoms.

So let’s dive into the key factors that are influencing these symptoms. So, when it comes to PCOS, these symptoms arise or reverse from a dance between the genetics and the environmental factors. So excess weight, particularly abdominal fat, so not like necessarily all over the body, but people who have a tendency towards that midsection of gaining weight or holding their weight in the midsection has been studied as a risk factor for all sorts of things, but in particularly, inflammation, a more oxidative stress in the body, and insulin resistance. So this is where the combination of heart problems and long term risk of type two diabetes are risk factors for women that have PCOS but typically, in the early years when you’re diagnosed, such as in your, you’re not going to necessarily have progressed to those things yet. That may be something that’s more likely to show up in your 50s, whereas in relatives that did not have PCOS, maybe didn’t show up until their 60s or 70s.

So this is where we see it speeds up, but we’re not going to see heart disease or even diabetes or insulin resistance in necessarily someone who’s 20. So we have to kind of remember the timeline of when we talk about the risk factors and the underlying disorders of when those are likely to show up.

So, with nutrition, which is a fundamental part of our daily lives, it plays a significant role in that pathophysiology, that disease process of PCOS. In particular, we think of carbohydrates. Okay, these are often a very misunderstood and mistaken about macronutrient. They come from so many different forms, and so many of them are so nutritious for you, like all your vegetables and even your fruits and so this is where I particularly like this study because it’s focusing on, well, what is the glycemic load and what is the glycemic index of these foods. So just really quick, let’s go through what is a glycemic index versus the glycemic load? Okay. A glycemic index is how much on a spectrum a certain food single ingredient is spiking your blood sugar. As in, if you eat an apple, to what degree is it going to spike your blood sugar? Glycemic load, on the other hand, is looking at the full combination of what you ate. So it’s a little bit more of a calculation between overall grams of carbohydrates and looking at the amount that you ate, and it’s looking at kind of the actual impact. So when you think of index, you’re thinking more of on a spectrum how much is this compared to that going to spike your insulin? You’d almost think of it like, if you lined up all the foods in order, there would be the ones that would be higher, ones that would be lower, and you would just like if they were numbered, you would put them in a numeric order, whereas load is giving you more of a value of the actual impact based on the ingredients and the amount that you ate in a certain setting. So you can imagine that if you ate one bite of apple, it’s not going to spike your insulin nearly as much as if you ate three apples, because that’s a lot more blood sugar that’s hitting your system and glycemic low doesn’t fully take this into account but just for actual lifestyle considerations, if you ate three apples really fast, like in a juice, and just gulped it down and drank it really fast, you would spike your sugar that much higher because the volume plus the velocity of how fast it entered your system.

So let’s get into the nitty gritty of those dietary choices, especially concerning GI, glycemic index and GL, glycemic load, and how they affect the pathophysiology and the symptoms of PCOS. So, our body’s glucose and insulin balance is a very delicate dance. So high carbohydrate diets, especially rich in processed carbs and sugars, may lead to rapid spikes in blood sugar levels, triggering an insulin resistance. Now, remember, they will trigger insulin release long before you have resistance. This is the most misunderstood thing when it comes to insulin, blood sugar and PCOS, women in their are often not insulin resistant and so when we look at the test for insulin resistance, their doctor is telling them, PCOS is linked to insulin resistance. You should take metformin or you should watch your diet and then they test them for insulin resistance and the patient asks, well, do I have insulin resistance? No, you don’t and so the patient leaves very confused. Well, I don’t have insulin resistant type PCOS. Those are two very different things. Every person, the most fit and healthy person, when they eat something, releases insulin. Now, someone who is less metabolically healthy is going to release a very different amount of insulin, and their body composition is going to be more prone to not using their blood sugar and insulin wisely and so it’s less of a well tuned machine. In that situation, they are pushing themselves towards overworking the pancreas, overworking the insulin machine, and ultimately developing insulin resistance, and then type two diabetes. The person who has really good metabolic health, on the other hand, is handling the foods that they’re eating. Hopefully, the reason they’re probably in metabolic health is they’re choosing their nutrients wisely and balancing out delicious treats and so forth with really healthy amounts of protein and other nutrients. So it’s finding that balance and when we see that our metabolic health is functioning well, our body is like a well tuned machine. When our metabolic health leaves something to be desired, it’s just struggling. All the mechanisms are struggling, leading to higher androgen production, such as a PCOS.

So, sorry, I got off on a tangent there, because that’s such an important thing to recognize that just because you aren’t insulin resistant today doesn’t mean that your body is not affected by insulin with every single item that you choose to eat. Okay. So when we think about trying to improve the glycemic index, glycemic load, several things become really helpful. Dietary fiber is our ally, protein is our ally, making sure that we are focusing on lots of vegetables and then carbohydrates when we get into the ones that are higher in carbohydrates, using some legumes and whole grains when possible, instead of refined grains. The less amount of processing and packaging, the better. The more we package things, the more we process things, we have found that these tend to be more disruptive to our metabolic health, as well as more disruptive to our endocrine system. By following these guidelines, we can reduce our blood sugar spikes and the tendency towards insulin resistance, or just high insulin circulating our system and this allows us to decrease both the insulin effect as well as inflammation.

So when it comes to chronic inflammation, persistent levels of low grade inflammation is what we’re looking at here. So we’re not talking about you hurt your knee and your knee is inflamed. We’re talking about your body living in a state of low grade inflammation and this is oftentimes linked to our food and it can be a reaction that every time we eat certain foods, our post-prandial inflammation reaction, this is going to be the post-prandial means post eating and this can be due by our caloric content, such as types of carbohydrates that we are consuming, the lipids, so the fats that we are consuming, these all come into play and also the body composition that we currently have comes into play. So when our body composition has extra fat involved in it, we’re not necessarily insulin resistant yet. However, that extra fat tissue is fanning the flame of whatever we just ate. So if we ate something that spiked our insulin high and we do not have extra body fat, our body can get away with it a little bit better than if we do have extra body fat.

When we do, what happens is we already have extra body tissue, that body fat is already prone to an insulin resistant state, and so it works against us in that meal where we ate extra fat. Now, I have experienced this firsthand, where I have a zone of sweet spot where when my body composition is in a certain zone, and you’ve heard me talk about this before on the podcast, I can get away with a lot more, I can eat pizza, I don’t have to be as careful now. I’m always watching how much protein I’m eating. I’m always making sure I’m eating vegetables, and I’m always making sure I’m drinking enough water. That said, what else is going into my diet becomes a little bit less rigid because my body handles it better, now for longevity and all of that, it’s still important and so I do focus on it, but it’s so much easier, which is so unfair, because when we’re struggling, that’s when we need it to be easy to kind of get over that hump, right? But when we are outside of that sweet zone, and everyone has a different zone of sweet spot, when we’re outside of that zone, it is so much harder. Our body is working against us, basically. So we just need to be a little stricter, that’s the healing phase of the PCOS healing journey, where we’re really diving in, being as strict as we can, and then we can move into the lifestyle phase once we’ve reached our goal and gotten to that sweet spot, and our body just works with us so much better. So it’s not fair. We can stay hung up on the fact that it’s not fair, or my recommendation is be mad about it for a little bit, accept it, and then work with it, because it’s just a fact and this has to do with those inflammation biomarkers that our body is dealing with.

Okay, so then when it comes to PCOS, we also want to talk about oxidative stress biomarkers. This is where prooxidants or antioxidants come into play. So, antioxidants, you hear a lot about things that help our body detox, the oxidative stress, basically and then there’s the things that cause the oxidative stress. So items that are processed have additives. This is where the whole clean eating and non inflammatory foods kind of come in and it’s not 100% across the board, like eat this, don’t eat that but the more that we eat organic, the more that we eat fresh foods, the less amount of tampering with the foods that we have, especially outside the home. So anything that’s being canned or processed or frozen is potentially having more things done to it than if you had done that in your own home and we don’t know the process that this food went through, but the more things that happen to it, the more likely it is to have prooxidants in it and cause the body things that are going to be inflammatory, in other words.

Okay, so how does this affect our androgen levels? So let’s explore the realm of androgen levels. These are our sex hormones and how nutrition can sway their delicate balance. Because when it comes to androgens, the teeniest, tiniest shift in amount that we have in our bodies has a tremendous effect and that’s where normal ranges are kind of laughable, because when we look at normal ranges, we’re looking at what is normal for the population but if you ranged inside those normal ranges, your body would be like chaos. So your range should stay very stable. Aside from like, in women we should be having cycles, so we should be having changes throughout the month but if you were to measure the changes at each point in your cycle, there should be very minimal adjusting between those ranges each month. Okay, so our body should be fairly stable. When it comes to our hormones, any little up or down has quite a huge effect. So if your testosterone goes just slightly up, it’s amazing how much that will affect your symptoms and you’re looking at the labs going, well, it’s pretty close to where it was before. That very slight change has a huge difference, or a huge ramification, is what I’m trying to say.

Okay, so how does glycemic index and glycemic load fit into this picture? So, basically, a low glycemic index has been shown to reduce total testosterone in overweight women with PCOS and the reason is because when we have sugar, it spikes insulin, which spikes our androgens, which is going to be primarily our testosterone, so that goes up. Now, there’s a whole nother side of this and so you can actually have too low of testosterone, too and it can be still linked to the whole insulin thing, but that gets a little bit more complicated. So what I like to kind of just say is that you can have either high or low testosterone. But I think the key takeaway here is that your androgens, your testosterone is directly correlated to your metabolic hormones. So if your metabolic hormones are off, which we can help improve by our glycemic index, by watching the glycemic index of the foods that we’re eating, we can make a tremendous difference by the dietary foods that we are choosing and how we’re setting up our diet.

So when you’ve seen your doctor, you have probably had some degree of conversation about weight management. Now, of course, there are the outliers, the unicorns, the few women who some people would say are lucky but I’ve worked with women who have thin type PCOS, and they have some serious struggles and in some ways, as much as it can be very difficult to lose weight with PCOS, women with thin type PCOS don’t have that as a tool in their toolkit and so that, in a lot of ways, makes their journey a little bit more complicated but for most women with PCOS, they end up having a conversation with their physicians about weight management and how their excess weight is making their PCOS worse but no one talks a whole lot about what to do about it or what they should do and so in this article, it talks about, again, how refined carbohydrates, sugar intake, in specifically looking at things like glycemic index and glycemic load, are linked to that higher body mass index or that excess weight and so as we lower our glycemic index and how we eat, we can reduce our body weight, improving several factors of our body composition.

Now, this is really important because we did not talk about calorie restriction. We talked about just the glycemic load. I just want to kind of throw that out there, we’re not going to get into all of that today, but I do want to throw that out there because I think that’s so important to realize, it’s not so much about counting calories, it’s about improving that metabolic health. So how do you get started with a low glycemic index, how do you meal plan for this? What are some practical ways to get started? These are things that we have talked about many times throughout the podcast. The research article does go through some of it, but I encourage you to go and listen to some of the other episodes on topics like the PCOS pantry, and I will link to these in the show notes.

The other two things that I really want to leave you with as far as tools for you to get started with glycemic index and the nutrition to help support your PCOS is there’s an episode and I will link to it in the show notes about a tool called a continuous glucose monitor. This is going to be a huge tool to get you started in understanding what foods are actually doing to your body. So you know how we talked about someone who has really great metabolic health, they can get away with more, and someone whose metabolic health is needing some love and care, they may not be able to get away with as much but how do you know where you fit into that? Because again, you may be in your biomarkers, all of your labs look really good. Glucose looks great, so how do you know? So something called a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor, can let you see in real time how food is affecting your body and sure, there’s a lot of things that kind of can affect the CGM, it’s not a perfect measurement, it’s not considered as standardized for treating as a laboratory test, but we don’t need it to be precise. What we’re looking for is these trends of if I eat a certain meal, do I get a small expected healthy spike in blood sugar and a slow curve down decrease over time, or do I get an abrupt high spike and then a sudden drop? Those are things that we’re looking for, and then we can look at, well, what did I just eat? How it affected my blood sugar, and then from that start to make better and better choices on our diet. So I am going to link to both CGM. If you buy through the link, you’ll get a discount, I forget the exact amount, but you’ll get a discount when you buy through the link. Also, if you email my team at [email protected] I will send you a little mini recording that goes over and it’s a video so you can see screenshots and some educational things on how to interpret your CGM results and all of that’s completely free, I will give that to you if you get started with the CGM.

So with that, there’s going to be several resources for you to accompany this episode because we’re really getting into the science in this episode and so a lot of resources are needed.

And with that, if you have any questions, you know where to find me, I’m over on Instagram. You can send me a DM and ask any of your questions @nourishedtohealthy and I would particularly like to know what you found most insightful about today’s episode. In other words, what one action step takeaway are you going to take from this episode and get started with today? And maybe this will be your action step. Another resource that I’m going to include in the show notes is, and you can grab the link below at the episode page. If you just go to that page, all the links will be there for you is a download of a glycemic index list. I find it just super helpful to be able to glance through and see which food items, vegetables, fruits, grains, milks, et cetera are high or low on the glycemic index and so you can just get a really quick visual of, oh, I eat a lot of that and that one’s good. Ooh, I eat a lot of that one and that one’s pretty high in glycemic index. It just gives you a really quick glimpse into where you may want to lean in and where you may want to be a little more conservative on what you’re putting in your mouth each day. So with that, I hope you enjoyed this research episode and until next time, bye for now.