Episode #127: Selecting High-Quality Supplements That Are Beneficial

Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of the PCOS Repair podcast, where today we’re going to be talking a little bit more about supplements. Now, I know I’ve done some episodes about supplements before, and I do not want this episode to scare anyone or be upsetting, but I do want it to be something that you stop and really evaluate where you’ve chosen your supplements from and how you’ve chosen them. And so today we’re going to walk through some of the key things that are really important to selecting and choosing brands as well as what supplements you’re going to take. First of all, anytime I talk about supplements, I want to start by saying that supplements play a part. They definitely play a role in the management of PCOS. There’s some great supplements, there’s some great research, which is great. There’s not a lot of research when it comes to supplements, but there is some. What there is is really helpful. We’ve gone over some of that in some other episodes, and we’ll continue to go out over that. I’ll also, over time, post supplement posts on my Instagram page. You can follow me over on Instagram @nourishedtohealthy and learn a little bit more about the different types of supplements and what they may or may not be helpful for.

However, when it comes to the role of supplements in PCOS, they can be almost like a front-end boost or a boost at the tail-end of your lifestyle management. But the bulk of where you’re going to see the best results when it comes to improving your PCOS symptoms is really in creating a bubble for yourself in your lifestyle. Now, a supplement can be a part of that. Sometimes for certain people, there’s something that’s going on where they’re trying so hard, but they’re just hitting a certain wall and selecting a supplement that can help them with that issue can help them get started. Alternatively, maybe you’ve made a ton of progress, but you’re just struggling with a last little bit. Sometimes a wisely chosen supplement can help you boost your results a little bit. A little farther but for the most part, if we didn’t have any supplements at all, we could still see huge improvement with our PCOS. That brings me to, I think there’s a lot of really helpful information In this age of easy access with Google and social media, there’s also a lot of marketing. We cannot market eating broccoli. Everyone knows that broccoli is good for you, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really make anyone any money to tell people that broccoli is good for them or that they should eat more protein.

We already know that. When it comes to a supplement, there’s a lot of noise and chatter around different supplements. That’s because they are a product that is marketable and so we talk about it, or the world talks about it. And so that’s why in today’s episode, I want to talk about what is going on with the supplement industry, how to select good brands, and then ultimately, how not to just start taking 15 supplements a day because you’ve heard that they may or may not be beneficial, because just like a lot of other things with PCOS that we talk about here on the podcast, supplements have a unique benefit for specific unique symptoms. You’re a unique individual that has your own stuff going on in your life, your own hormonal imbalances. Ultimately, not all supplement is going to be a win for As we start off with the reminder that lifestyle changes such as our mindset, caring for our emotional well-being, our nutrition, and Our movement habits are always going to far outweigh any other treatment modality that we can incorporate for our PCOS. Now, that’s not to say that certain medications or certain procedures or certain supplements cannot aid along our way, but it’s to say that we cannot outrun poor lifestyle choices.

If we’re doing something in the way that we’re eating, if we’re not getting adequate movement, if we’re not getting enough sleep, ultimately, those things will catch up with us no matter what other things that we’re trying to do to manage our PCOS. There’s three big things that I consider when thinking about what are the best supplements for an individual, for myself, where I’m talking about your best supplements. First of all, what is it that you’re wanting to improve? If we’re just like, Oh, I have PCOS and I’ve heard this supplement. I saw this girl on Instagram, she was talking about this supplement. I’ve heard it’s a good one. I should try it but we don’t even know what the supplement is within a supplement. Some of these supplements now for PCOS are just labeled PCOS hormonal balance. Well, what’s in there? What’s the active ingredient? What are they trying to improve? Is that something that you want improved? Is that something that has any scientific backing? So the first step is, what is it that you are trying to improve? Let’s talk about this from a standpoint of energy. Say you’ve been feeling really low energy and you’re looking for ways to improve your low energy.

You think it is related to your PCOS, maybe at certain times of the day, you just get this really, really exhausted energy slump, and it’s affecting your ability to do certain work. Maybe it’s affecting your ability to get your workout in in the afternoon and so you’re like, Okay, I’ve honed in on energy becoming a real problem for me. It feels like it’s holding me back, and I would like to work on how do I improve my energy. Well, there’s a lot of lifestyle things that we could consider for how do we improve our energy but if we were looking towards a supplement for energy improvement, what ones would we want to consider? and I’m not going to go into details of what supplements and so forth here. I’m just going to keep it vague. I have a resource for all of you. So if you go to the show notes, you’ll see that there is a resource of PCOS supplements. You can download it and it’ll have all sorts of different types of the actual supplements, the active ingredients, what it’s good for, as well as the brands that I recommend. It’ll give you a resource for where you can find those.

And I’ll walk you through the whole considerations of how to choose a supplement. Right here on the podcast today, I want to keep this very conversational, less in the weeds about one specific supplement or getting into all of them. Okay, so back to our conversation here. You’ve chosen energy, You’re looking at the energy type supplements. You’ve discovered that there are five different ones that you’re interested in. Okay, so this brings me to part two. So now you have a specific thing that you want to address. You have a list of specific supplements that address that It’s a concern and then our next step is to choose wisely what brands we want to try. So certain brands have been checked by third parties, other brands have not. This is where I want to… We’ll come back to the couple steps in a second, but I want to take a sideline conversation about supplements. These are not regulated by the FDA. They are not like medications where when they say there’s a certain dosage on the label or there’s a certain active ingredient in there that it is actually in there or in that quantity. This is something that is scary when it comes to supplements.

We don’t know what else is in there. We don’t know if what we think we’re taking is actually in there in the quantity that we think we’re taking it, as well as we don’t know what else is in there. One of my favorite places to shop for supplements is on a platform called Fullscript and again, when you go through the guide that you can download, it’ll be in the show notes below. You can also go to Instagram and you can just message me the word, all one word, PCOS Supplements. So no space in between. Just PCOS Supplements. Then I will send you the link to the guide. But when you get this guide, you want to check out Fullscript. I highly recommend it and one of my favorite features on it is that when you can repair the different brands, they’ll tell you if it was third-party tested or not, as well as fullscript is a, I think, very reputable company and they’re a dispensary of supplements. It’s like if you went to GNC, but they are very picky about what supplements they provide. You’ll notice if you search for a lot of hyped up brands, they may not be on there.

The reason is they stick with very reputable sources. One, I trust that fullscript has probably done the research for me but even beyond that, their platform is very friendly to going through and comparing what’s in there, has it been third-party tested, et cetera. It’s really easy to help pick the supplement that you’re looking at. I’m going to link to an article that, and it’ll be in the show notes below, but I’m going to link to an article that talks about some sports supplements. These are not all herbs, medicinally, naturally supplements, vitamins and minerals and so forth but the same applies. This article went through and it showed that… Hold on, what was the statistic here? This particular study, and I will link to this in the show notes. Again, this is for sports supplements, but this is what happens when things are not regulated. This is just one article. It would be really cool if we could test more of these. But this is where third-party testing is really interesting. Basically, in this research article, they were a third party testing these sports supplements, and they found that out of the 63 supplements that they tested, actually, they purchased 63, six of them did not list one of the ingredients they were looking at.

So they ended up with 57 products. So out of the 57 products that they looked at, 23 of them, that’s 40%, did not have a detectable amount of the labeled ingredient. So you go buy a sports supplement, you’re going to drop over 30 bucks, possibly closer to $50 or $80 on this sports supplement that you were told that this certain ingredient is going to help your performance and help you build muscle, help you have better energy while you’re working out, et cetera and come to find out, it doesn’t have any of that ingredient in it. So that, to me, is rather concerning. Also concerning was that of the products that contained detectable amounts, the listed actual quantity ranged from 0.02%, so basically none, but enough that it was detectable, to 334% of the labeled quantity. That is an astronomically horrifying range of quantities. When you think about taking a supplement and you think about how important dosing is, and you’re trying to be so careful to make sure you’re taking it, and the dosing range is so variable, how do we trust supplements? This is where I think that researching the brand that you’re getting it from is so, so, so, so, so important.

We don’t know as a consultant consumer what we’re getting. We have to trust the brand that the brand is providing us with what we think that we’re getting. There are specific brands that I feel really good about. Then there’s also just going through and being able to see that a third party actually was able to verify that these supplements from this particular brand actually did contain this, this, and this. And then furthermore, were there any toxic undesirable ingredients in the supplement? That’s another one that is a huge problem in the supplement market. And again, that’s something that full script goes through in their analysis of a supplement. And when you get the guide, I do a little video walkthrough as part of the download, and you can see some pictures as well as I walk you through what to look for when you’re doing a search for your supplements on the platform, just so that you become really easily familiar with how the platform works as you look for your supplements. Also, when you create a login through the link that I provide you, it offers you some discounts and so forth so that you’re able to get your supplements at a reasonable rate.

There is an affiliate component to this. I personally use this platform, and that’s why I’m recommending it to you. I think that it has so much clarity in what you’re getting compared to just going down and buying something off the shelf or purchasing something online because you saw somebody talking about it. And that’s why I’m recommending it to you. I do want to, in full disclosure, say that there is an affiliate portion of it. I get to choose how much of a percentage I share with you, and I share the max amount. So this is really more about you getting the correct information that you need, but it is, at the end of the day, an affiliate link. Okay. And again, you can get all of that information in the download for today. It will be on the link below, whatever platform you are listening. If you do not see it there, because certain platforms limit the content that I can provide you there, you will see that there’s an episode website page. It will be on that page for you. Of course, you can go over to Instagram and ask me for the supplement guide over there.

I’ll send it directly to you. It’s an automated send, so you’ll get it instantly. If you message me the words PCOS supplements, all one word. Now that we’ve talked about the brand and the reputation and how to select those and research those, let’s finish our little conversation here about picking the right one. You chose what concern you had. Are you using the example of energy? You did some research and you found what couple of supplements are going to help with energy. Then you’re looking at the brands, you’ve narrowed it down to a couple of brands. What next? So maybe you have a couple of different things. You’re like, Okay, I have this PCOS root cause, and this situation is leading to poor energy. And then there’s this other supplement that just really helps to level out that root cause. It helps with that root cause. This other supplement helps to manage energy. And they’re completely different. They’re not same category of the product. They’re not the same supplements, and you just pick one. So these two different supplements are two things that I want to try. I recommend trying one first, giving it a few weeks, checking in with yourself, did you feel any different, and do a little research on how something should work.

So some things, when it comes to actually softening or amplifying hormones, so this isn’t so much to do with energy, but one called Maka can actually help your hormone production and help your hormone balancing. For specific situations, again, not everybody with PCOS needs to take Maka, but when we’re talking about adjusting how our hormones are functioning, producing, and regulating themselves, this is not something that This is something that happens over a week. This is something that happens over three months. Now, something like iron, if you’re feeling really fatigued and you have low iron, this is something that can actually start making you feel better in the course of about a week or two. You have to understand as you research your supplement, and this is all things that I’ve listed out for you in the supplement guide. You have to understand the time frame of how long should I try this before I’m like, This isn’t working for me or this isn’t working for me. Then somewhere in that ballpark, you add in the other one. Now, you don’t have to wait three months. Say you were going to add in Maka, and it’s going to take about three months to improve.

Then you’re going to add in something like iron that’s going to take a week or two to improve. Well, Personally, two schools of thought here, actually. You could argue it either way, and I would agree with you either way but you could start the iron first. You could start taking the iron. It’s going to have a quicker effect. You’re going to know over about a couple of weeks whether or not you’ve seen any improvement. I was low iron. When I started taking iron, I noticed an improvement within about 10 days. Not everyone notices that, but I had lab work done and all of a sudden I noticed I was low on iron, and so I started taking an iron supplement. Again, iron is actually a funny one. You’ll see in the supplement guide, when you go to download it, I talk all about iron. There are certain ones that can make you really constipated and certain ones that don’t affect that at all. So definitely choose your iron wisely if that’s one that you’re considering for yourself. The guide also goes through how to help decide where you may want to start and what supplements and how you’re thinking about it.

It basically guides you through the thought process, and then ultimately, you’re going to want to talk to your healthcare provider before adding a supplement but okay, so maybe you start with the short, the one that’s going to give you an effect in a shorter time frame or maybe you’re like, Well, this one’s going to take me three months to start working. I should start taking that one now. Really, there’s not a right or a wrong, but understanding that just It’s because you figured out what concern you have, and you’re going to address it with a supplement, as well as your lifestyle, of course, and then researching what supplements it is that you are interested in, researching the brands that you’re comfortable working with, as well as then deciding when and how many you want to start with. This is really the question here, right? Do you start with both of them? Do you start one at the time? and ultimately, it’s up to you but we don’t want to just go. Okay, I was told the supplement was good for the symptom that I’m concerned about. This was a good brand, therefore I’m taking it.

I never checked in to see if it was helping me. That’s how we end up taking 25 supplements because we keep doing that with the next supplement, but we don’t even know which ones are helping us anymore. I highly recommend you somehow come up with your own system, and have your own little system of journaling. How do you decide why you’re taking a supplement? And then did that supplement address that problem? It may not take it away completely, but did you notice that that one was helpful? For my personal example, when I started taking iron, yeah, I noticed that that one was helpful. Another popular one that we’re going to talk about in a few weeks is ovasitol or inositol like powders. When I started taking that one, I took it for three months, I noticed no difference. Now, something that you take for three months, it’s a little. It’s a little harder to say over three months that I didn’t just slowly start feeling better. When I stopped it, I also paid attention, and I felt no different. That doesn’t mean that it’s not helpful for some women. There is a fair amount of research on inositols being helpful.

We’re going to have a whole episode coming up about that specific supplement because it’s one that everyone thinks if they have PCOS that they should take. We’re going to talk about if that’s true or not in a future episode. But for now, I’m just using it as For me personally, I noticed no difference, and so that’s not one that I continue to take. Anyway, the point is that we don’t want to just take them blindly because somebody said. We want to evaluate for our own purposes, is it helping me? Is it causing any side effects? Does it cause upset stomachs? Does it cause bloating? If so, is there a way that I can take it to modify dosing or the schedule of which I’m supposed to take it to work with my body? Those are all things that we want to be considering and not just blindly taking it. We want to be listening to our body, working with our unique situation. Then before we fully start actually taking the supplement, we’ve done all our research, we always want to check in with our health care provider. This is very important because supplements are over the counter.

That doesn’t mean they come without side effects. It does not mean they don’t come with drug interactions. There are supplements that will interact with your birth control. There are supplements that will interact with heart medications or hypertension medications or blood thinners or any other various category of medications, there are supplements that will interact with them. You want to make sure that your doctor has your full medication list, is aware of any supplements, vitamins, et cetera that you are taking or are considering taking before you start taking them. So be sure to check in with them and then just a few others… Again, I don’t want this to be a scary episode, but just a few other things to be aware of. Now, there are some amazing people who have been frustrated with the supplement market and have created their own brand. I think that’s fantastic. A lot of times, unless they have a good budget behind them, though, there’s not a lot of third-party testing or absorption testing. There can be some limitations to that. Again, you have to really know the company, how they’re being made. I don’t want to knock them from across the board standpoint because some of these supplements are probably some of the best ones out there.

However, the caveat to that is there are a lot of influencers out there who are marketing, quotes, their own brand. The problem is there are a lot of companies out there that will let you self-label. When you can label a product with your company’s logo and your company’s information, it looks like it’s your supplement line. But in reality, it’s actually some other company’s supplement line that allows white labeling and allows an influencer or a company to label it with their name and their information on it. Then they go on to social media, they go on the internet, and they market this product as their best out there supplement line. Because you trust them, because they’re telling you all this other great information, you buy their supplement. They may have very pure motives. They think that this company is a really good company. The problem is, again, and this is where I do have a couple of affiliate things, but I don’t love in-house brands. I like to go with the bigger supplement brands, personally, because I don’t know where these other things are coming from. I don’t know if they’re just self-labeled or if they’re actually self-manufactured.

And in being self-manufactured, do they undergo as many of the systematic reviews that some of the bigger supplement companies have at their disposal. But bigger also doesn’t mean better. So just going in and seeing what’s going on is really important. And that’s a headache. It almost becomes a hurdle. Now, I’m not going to ever get around to it. That’s why I like the platform Fullscript. I feel like they’ve done a lot of that heavy lifting for me, so I can just go in and already be shopping from a collection of very high-quality supplements. Even amongst those high-quality supplements, they make it very easy for me to review some of these key factors of, was it a third-party review? Were there any concerning elements added to it? Is it organic and certified? They’ve been tested for if it has any bad toxic type stuff in it, and they list out the different ones. You can review, or it hasn’t been. You can review which supplement has had the different things, as well as the that’s in it and get a better idea of what you’re purchasing and consuming as you plan out what supplements may be a good fit for you.

With that, that is a ton of information. I know there’s going to be lots of questions about this one. I really encourage you to head over to Instagram and message me, PCOS Supplements, all one word, S at the end. So PCOS, S-U-P-P-L-E-M-E-N-T-S. Go message me that over on Instagram. I will send you the link to get the full guide. It’ll walk you through the different kinds of supplements, how to start narrowing down where you even want to start. Researching, it’ll give you some of the base highlights of the research, and then you can take that further on your own. It’ll walk you through how to use the full script platform and how to set up an account so that you can get some discounts as well as be able to do your own searches and start to learn about which brands may be the best fit for you. And then that way you can take that information and research that you’ve done to your doctor and get the okay that it would be something safe for you to take. 

All right, with that, I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode. If so, a lot of jam-packed information in this one. Be sure to hit that subscribe button so that you don’t miss the upcoming episodes we have. In the remainder of this year, I have some great ones planned for you. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button on whatever platform you enjoy listening on. Until next time, bye for now.