Episode #35: Everything You Need To Know About Dairy And PCOS

There are quite a few recommendations out there today about what not to eat so that you can have better PCOS health and one of the big ones is dairy. So many so-called PCOS experts recommend against consuming dairy products, but first of all, is it realistic, and is it necessary or even beneficial for women with polycystic ovarian syndrome to avoid dairy? That is exactly what we will be talking about in this episode. 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 Ashleen 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.

So perhaps you’ve heard that you should avoid dairy if you have PCOS. But is this true and will it be beneficial to your health? And more importantly, I always like to ask why? That’s what we’re going to be discussing in this episode. There are two main categories that I think of when I’m weighing the pros and cons of dairy. The first one is breaking down the actual components of what dairy is and then the second one is how the dairy that you’re purchasing at the store is produced and manufactured. So before we dive into those, the reason for this episode is that it’s all well and good to say that avoiding a certain food may be beneficial to your health, but then we always have to look at what would we be replacing that with? And dairy is a very large category and as we’re going to talk about dairy substitutes today, we’ll get into that. But more importantly, dairy has a good amount of protein in it and some healthy fats and so when we take this food group out of our diet, we are limiting ourselves from some of these very easy-to-include in our day-to-day options that might actually be more beneficial than something else we’re eating.

So, as you keep that in mind, we have to weigh how our body agrees with it, which we’ll get into, we have to weigh what is in there and is it causing our body harm and to what degree, and then what would the alternative be? And is that actually better? Because at the end of the day, we do have to eat and we want to make sure that it’s practical so that we’re following a way of eating that we can maintain because eating a certain way for a week or two and then not being able to maintain it is not beneficial. We would be so much better off at an 80% ideal or even a 75% ideal that we can maintain. Okay, so with that preface, let’s dive into the different components of dairy. The proteins are split into whey and casein, so both of these are high-quality protein that contains all of the amino acids, which means our body can’t make these amino acids. We must consume them in order for our body to create the tissues and structures that our body needs, including the hormones that our body needs, so they are important.

The problem with casein is that for some women, it is very inflammatory. This is what causes dairy to be inflammatory, and this is even a bigger problem for PCOS health because we already at baseline, are more prone to inflammation and so as we add in foods that increase inflammation, we’re really tipping that scale in the direction of having too much inflammation in our body, and our bodies can’t cope with it, and we start to see the symptoms creep in. So for some women, this makes dairy inflammatory, which is a big problem for women with PCOS and their health and hint hint, this is not just for women who get the inflammatory response type when they take the PCOS root cause quiz. This can be a contributor to all of the PCOS root causes, so just keep that in mind as we go through today’s episode. But for a few lucky women, organic-free dairy is actually okay. So the inflammatory problem with dairy is not the lactose or the fat, the problem is this protein called type a1 casein. A1 casein it hits your digestion and it breaks down into this casomorphin BCM-7,

And the casomorphin is kind of like an opiate, which is morphine is an opiate, codeine is an opiate. So these are narcotics that we know to be addictive and this casomorphin basically acts like this drug, which is why some people have brain fog when they consume dairy, and also why some people really crave dairy, and then this casomorphin, A1 casein protein increases inflammation. So inflammation further impairs insulin sensitivity and damages the hormone signaling of ovulation, inflammation also makes hormone receptors overly sensitive to androgens like testosterone. So all of the things that are already environmentally fragile and sensitive in a woman with PCOS are made worse by this specific protein of A1 casein. But then there are some individuals who do fine with dairy and this is because when they digest, they actually excrete this casomorphin before it enters their bloodstream and so it bypasses it all together and they don’t have this effect. So, practically speaking, how do you know which group do you fall into, are you sensitive to this A1 casein? and should you avoid dairy? There is not a widespread test for this that’s widely available. So ultimately, we have to learn to listen to our body, which is really what I recommend anyway because you may test for things that you have no problems with and you may not test for things that you can tell you have problems with because that’s just the way of testing. It’s not perfect. And so learning to listen to your body is so much more spot on, is subjective, and so health care providers don’t always like it because they don’t get a printout that tells you how you’re feeling. You are the only one that knows how something is affecting you and we need to validate that and listen to that in order to learn if you’re sensitive to dairy, this is one application of how I like to use the PCOS Detox program. I will link to it in the show notes below. But by taking a break, doing a detox from dairy, which is one of the things that we remove in the week of the PCOS detox, and then adding it in strategically with certain types of dairy, one at a time, we will be able to better understand how our body is responding to these foods and you can get your answer that way of if you are sensitive to this casein protein just by the symptoms that you have or don’t have.

You can also think back in your personal history, did you suffer with recurring tonsillitis or ear infections when you were a kid? Did you suffer from chronic hay fever? Or maybe you still suffer from chronic hay fever or sinus problems? And do you crave dairy, like we all enjoy things that have dairy on them, or most of us do. If you don’t, no need to add dairy and necessarily do you crave dairy? Do you think about cheese and do you think about wanting milk? Those are things where you want this kind of almost like a drug that you want that hit again. If the answers to any of these are yes, then you may definitely have that casein problem. I would definitely recommend taking a break from dairy and see how you do, symptom-wise with bloating, acne, and just your PCOS cycles, all of your PCOS symptoms should really calm down when you reduce that inflammatory effect of that particular protein that we find in milk. Now, to make this even a little layer here of complication, not all cows produce a1 casein, but the whole steam cows, which produce most of the milk for the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK, they contain that protein in their milk.

A different type of casein called a2 casein does not have this casomorphin BCM-7 and does not cause inflammation. So those types of milk are okay to consume. These would be milk from Jersey cows, goats, and sheep, they produce that predominantly a2 and that one actually tends to be fine for most people. Also, cheeses like ricotta are okay because they actually contain mostly whey protein, and butter is okay because it’s mostly fat. So the takeaway is to experiment. I recommend following my PCOS detox program and then slowly introducing to see what works for you. Jersey cow, goat cheese, sheep dairy, all of those types of things are usually very well tolerated for women that don’t do well with a1 casein stand and so those are also good things to slowly test in. If you know you don’t do well with dairy, usually you may be able to include some of those which are going to be like feta cheese, and then there are some a2 milk on the market now that you can get at various grocery stores. I’ll include these in the show notes, that way you can go and see if they’ll have store locators so that you can find where they might be in your location in the world.

And one way to tell if you have acne, you may notice very quickly that your acne finally starts to clear up if you remove a1 casein dairy from your diet when nothing else has worked. So for those of you ladies that have really bad cystic acne, this is definitely something you may want to experiment with. Okay, the next protein that we want to talk about in dairy is whey. So whey is also a very high-quality protein that contains all of those essential amino acids and this is again a reason why we may not want to remove dairy from our diet because there are a lot of protein bars and protein shakes or protein powders that are whey-based. Now you have to watch the ingredient list because sometimes they also have casein in them. But to just say let’s cut out all dairy removes those from your options list and we’ll talk about whether whey versus plant-based is better, but this gives you more options most people like the taste of whey a little bit better and while it is possible for some women to actually have a whey allergy, this is not a common problem and it’s definitely not a PCOS problem, it’s just that some people do have allergies to various foods. So keep that in mind, it is possible to have a whey allergy, but for most people that are just having irritation and PCOS symptoms show up and they go away when they remove dairy, we can isolate it to that casein a1. The next component that we want to talk about from dairy products is lactose. Now, this is something that we hear a lot of people have allergies to, but again, just like with whey you can definitely have a lactose intolerance and in that sense you would want to avoid dairy. But then the other downside of lactose is that this is basically the sugar of dairy. So in small percentages, when paired with a good amount of protein in your dairy, it’s fine, it’s going to balance out the blood sugar and it’ll be fine. But there are often really high sugar-to-protein ratios in certain low-fat dairy products. So keep that in mind, that is not going to be ideal for hormone health. The last thing that I just want to mention is you may hear people talk about the insulin growth factor found in all animal milk that’s going to be found in Jersey cows and it’s going to be found in the sheep and the goats too. This is something where it can kind of mimic insulin in your system, if you really have insulin resistance going on type two diabetes, people may suggest that that’s a concern. Now, I like to look at it from both sides. Again, dairy has a good amount of protein, it’s going to balance out some of those effects and so you have to look at what you would have eaten instead. If you can grab a yogurt or if you can grab string cheese as compared to a bag of crackers or chips, I would say that the insulin growth factor is definitely going to be less of a problem than the refined, processed carbohydrates in the other snack option. If you are even pairing a little bit of cheese with some crackers, that is going to help to balance out that sugar spike of the crackers. So again, you have to look at the big picture here. Knowledge is power. When you understand what’s in the food that you’re choosing, you’re able to make better choices, more informed choices and again, it’s not about cutting anything out of your diet unless you have intolerance or allergy to that food. Otherwise, it’s choosing what things you want to eat in abundance, what things you want to eat in moderation, and what things you want to eat on special occasions. Okay? That’s the lifestyle approach. Okay, so that brings us to the second concern or consideration about dairy, and that is how are the cows cared for and how is the dairy processed. Unfortunately, a lot of dairy farms use antibiotics and growth hormones to counteract any hygiene concerns as well as to increase milk supply. So these two things can be passed into the milk and further disrupt PCOS hormones. So there’s a lot of argument about this. Now, milk is tested. If any sort of amount of antibiotics is detected in the milk, that batch is not allowed to go through. However, antibiotics are still used in livestock. They just will throw out batches of milk if the antibiotics load gets too high. You can avoid all of this just by choosing organic dairy products because organic dairy products do not allow for antibiotics. And you can just make sure that it says on there that no growth hormones were used.

They pretty much all label that pretty clearly these days because they know people look for it. So you can easily avoid those two concerns by choosing dairy that is organic and the cows have not been treated with growth hormones. All right, so in summary, from all of these components and thoughts about dairy. So step one is really to experiment. Are you sensitive to the dairy that you currently consume? Okay? So you don’t have to make it super hard or difficult. Stop eating the dairy that you are currently consuming. Take a break from it. Maybe slowly add a little bit in here and there. The way that would look is maybe you add in whatever dairy you have for breakfast and just kind of see how you do. Don’t add everything back in all at once, but maybe pick one meal, one dish, and see how you do with it. And ideally, pick something that is dairy isolated so that would look like instead of adding in a casserole like macaroni and cheese, that has cheese in it, add in something like yogurt. How do you do with yogurt? Ideally a really clean source of yogurt. So if you normally have yogurt for breakfast, try a plain Greek yogurt and see how you do after going off of it for a week or two.

After going off of all dairy for a week or two, not just skipping your morning yogurt and then having dairy, the rest of this goes off all yogurt. And then add in one type of clean dairy that doesn’t have a lot of other ingredients. Because if you’ve removed all of the dairies from your diet and all of a sudden you add back in, say, macaroni and cheese. Is it the processed carbohydrates of the noodles that’s making your stomach upset? Is it the combination of that with the dairy? Or was it really the dairy? Or is it that the fact that the cheese in macaroni and cheese is highly processed cheese with additives, and is it all the additives that you’re having an inflammation response to? So we want to keep it as clean and simple as possible so that, you know, okay, I actually do fine with dairy as long as I eat clean dairy. When I start adding things that are processed and have extra inflammation ingredients in it, then I start to have a problem. We want to kind of isolate that down really from the standpoint of the more things that we can include in our diet, the easier it is to maintain this lifestyle.

And consistency and long-term is going to lead to a lot more success and health overall than only being able to sustain this for a short amount of time. And of course, as you go through that process, if you have specific questions, you’re always welcome to connect with me over on Instagram. I love hearing from you all over there. That’s where I do most of my communication. All right, so then the second thing you’re going to want to do after you have tested is think about, well, what is it that you actually like to eat? What kinds of things are readily available to you without having to completely overhaul what you eat? How can you substitute things back in, and we’re going to talk about substitutions in a minute. And also, how can you make sure you’re getting enough protein? So now that you have your answer from your testing and experimenting of how careful do you need to be around dairy, you can kind of start making decisions based on the information of the components of dairy, and what you want to include. So for me, it looks like this. I don’t eat low-fat dairy products, I don’t buy low-fat yogurt even like Fayeh Greek yogurt. I buy 2%, 5%, or whole. Usually, I buy the 5% or whole Fayeh Greek Yogurt, whole is actually hard to find, you can find it and I think chobani usually has a whole. Trader Joe’s has a hole. It’s very creamy. It’s a lot less tangy. You don’t need very much sweetener at all to make it very palatable. Keep in mind, it has higher fat and calorie content or containing. So your body actually doesn’t need as much of it to get the energy that you need. But it’s very tasty and it’s going to have higher dairy fat, so it will have less of just the milk component of your dairy product. The other thing that I do is I don’t drink milk. If I make a smoothie or something like that, the kinds of more drinkable milk that I have, I have unsweetened coconut milk and unsweetened almond milk. And we’ll talk about that again in a minute. Also, for my coffee, I have one to two cups a day. So this is not an extreme amount, but I add half and a half to that and it’s creamier, it’s tastier.

It doesn’t require me to put a lot of sweetener in it. That way it’s quick, it’s easy. And I actually can enjoy my coffee that way because I don’t really buy into the eating things that I barely can stand because I’m doing it the most perfect way. And like I’ve mentioned, there’s definitely two sides to this when it comes to are we choosing to have dairy in our diet or not? I also have tested and I do fine with dairy, now there are dairy. Like if I drink a lot of 1% milk or something like that, I get a stomachache. I feel icky. So there is some sensitivity there. But when I’ve stayed with the higher fat and in lower quantity dairy, then I do just fine. But that allows me to have cheese on a taco. It allows me to have cheese in a recipe. It allows me to put some Parmesan cheese with my Caesar salad. But at the same time, I’m not overdoing it on just constantly eating cheese with every meal. Okay, so this brings me to the next consideration, and that’s the benefits of protein. Protein, you guys, is like, so important.

And it is really hard to get enough protein in your day. And so that’s one of the reasons why it concerns me when people are just saying, oh, don’t eat dairy. Sure, if you cut out dairy, there is going to be some improvement in your symptoms. But if you understand what dairy to cut out and what dairy to leave, you’re going to do even better. Okay, so what are the benefits of protein in your diet? The problem, like I said, with removing dairy is that what are you going to substitute for that dairy? And are those alternatives such as coconut yogurt, do they have as much protein or are they kind of just an empty food, meaning there’s not a lot of nutritional value to them? I would recommend protein over most supplements. Like, if you can just focus on getting enough protein in your diet and not worry so much about what PCOS supplement would be right for you, that would be probably a really great first step. That’s how important protein is. So many dairy alternatives, they’re just not as good. So if you look at I want you next time you go to the store, look at like Fayeh or Giovanni plain Greek yogurt, either the 1%, fat-free, 2, 5, I don’t care which one.

Look at the protein percentage per amount that you eat compared to a coconut yogurt such as Forager or Kite, those are two big brands out there. Look at the difference between the two and just see how much more protein you’re getting in the dairy yogurt. It’s just an interesting thing to look at. Protein serves so many basic functions in your body, and so when you don’t have enough protein, it just makes sense that your body is not going to function optimally. These things include enzymes, the proteins that carry out chemical reactions in your body. So it’s going to be digestion and all sorts of really important functions require enzymes. If you don’t have the proteins, it’s not going to go well. Antibodies, this is going to help you fight viruses and infections and remove foreign particles from your body messengers. So this is the hormone signaling and all of the chemical communication that happens in our body is also very important and very important for PCOS. Okay, structures, so all of our skin, bones, muscles, tendons, everything that keeps us strong, healthy, and we think about longevity, as we start to enter our later 30s, early 40s, these become really important transport and storage.

So these are going to also include things like hormones, how our medications and supplements and vitamins are absorbed, and those enzymes again. So all of that communication and talking and communicating through different parts of our body of what’s going on are very, very protein-dependent. Beyond these basic nutritional functions, protein serves several other benefits, one is fat loss, we cannot burn fat if we don’t have enough protein, it helps by decreasing our appetite and smoothing out those cravings and those sugar spikes. And it also helps to boost your metabolism. So we tend to keep our energy high or more stable when we’re eating enough protein. Blood sugar control is a huge one for PCOS. And protein is so important for this. When we consume it with carbohydrates, it helps to improve our blood sugar spikes. It helps us to keep our blood sugar even between meals and to not be bouncing all over the place. And then just some general health considerations that studies have found that people who consume more protein, they didn’t even really pay attention to what specific type or source of protein, but just more protein had lower blood pressure. All right, so now let’s talk about dairy and dairy substitutes.

This is a really important one because when people say to avoid dairy for PCOS, our go-to response is to not really change up how we eat elsewhere but to just order or buy the dairy substitute. So we go with putting hemp milk or rice milk or oat milk or almond milk or coconut milk into our Starbucks order and then we buy cashew cheese and we buy or make coconut yogurt, and is this really a better solution to dairy? There’s a lot of plant-based hype out there right now. Fruits and vegetables have always been and will always be a great choice because they’re filled with nutrients, fiber, and antioxidants that your body needs. But plant-based products, however, are another story. Aside from well-chosen unsweetened coconut milk or almond milk, the other processed plant foods may need a second look when you think of them from a health standpoint. There’s a lot of marketing that goes into them. There are a lot of environmental sustainability thoughts and marketing that go into them. But the main question here in this episode is are they a healthy choice for your PCOS hormones? So while plant-based has become a huge health buzzword, I want to just throw out there that the last time I checked, Oreos count is a plant-based food.

And that’s the problem with all of these kinds of buzzword ways of eating, such as plant-based. I get the Oreos as an extreme example but consider all of the plant-based veggie, meats, and plant-based cheese alternatives. If you look at the ingredients, it’s a very long list of unrecognizable food ingredients and then another consideration I want to point out when it comes to plant-based proteins is that they are not as well absorbed by the body. So some experts that really spend a lot of time looking at protein consumption say that we’re looking at probably absorbing about 50% of what is on the label for protein in grams and possibly even less because of the starches that are attached to the protein when we’re looking at a plant-based protein. So like a pea protein or something like that. And also a lot of these very processed plant proteins can just by themselves create some digestive and inflammatory issues and responses in the body, so keep that in mind. A lot of people report a lot more stomach pain and bloating when they consume a plant-based protein. Now, I’m not against a plant-based protein, but the reason I’m bringing these things up is I don’t want you to just think, oh, plant-based is better because you’ve heard that buzzword.

I want you to learn to listen to your body and experiment with how you do with a Whey based protein versus a plant-based protein and really see how your body responds. Because this is not a one size fits all. Some people definitely do better when they move away from animal products. But then keep in mind, you’re probably going to need to consume more protein than you thought in order to get those protein levels that you want. So again, I don’t think that these foods need to be avoided. I just want you to know that there’s two sides to these stories. I also think that when you look at how our ancestors ate, it’s important to recognize that these plant-based foods were not meant to be eaten in these quantities. So yes, while I do consume some coconut milk and almond milk, I don’t consume them by the half gallon a day or even the half gallon a week. It pretty much takes me an entire week to go through about a half gallon of that for the whole family. So I’m not eating these in huge quantities. And when you think about how many almonds or how many coconuts went into creating that carton of milk, I don’t think that we were meant to eat nuts in that quantity.

So when you think about what you’re consuming, varying it, and not just relying on substitutes, I think is basically the takeaway here. So when choosing your foods, the point of this episode is really to look past the curtain of marketing of things that may sound like they’re a better choice because of the label that they put on it and looking into what exactly are you actually consuming so that you can allow yourself to make these food choices. From a place of knowledge, it’s fine to eat any and all foods, but knowing what amounts and which ones you want to focus on, and not being led astray by thinking something that’s healthy and just eat as much of it as you want because maybe that’s something you want to relook at. And again, veggies and fruits are always going to be amazing. So as we get down to the real root in the science of dairy, it’s still a little bit muddy of whether or not dairy is a good fit for PCOS or not. And honestly, it’s probably a little bit muddy whether or not dairy is a good fit for the average person or not.

And that’s where it’s really about learning to listen to your body, listen to how it responds and do a little trial and error and ultimately. Eat as cleanly as possible. So as a recap, if you’re considering including dairy in your diet, what are the best ways to do that? Sheep and goat products. So a lot of these are going to be like goat cheese or feta cheese. There are feta cheeses that are made with both sheep or goat’s milk. In certain recipes, a little bit of goat’s milk may be really great in like a soup where you’re already having a lot of savory flavors. Feta cheese is a great addition to a salad and it adds a lot of flavors, these are generally free from all casein a1 and would be a good source of dairy protein for women with PCOS. Alternatively, you can purchase and I will link to some options of a2 casein milk and yogurts. There are some brands that I have been researching and I will link to those on the Show Notes web page and then there are also some dairy alternatives. My recommendation with these is to choose ones with very few ingredients and to experiment with which ones appear to agree with you.

I’ll open up the brands that I like on the web page as well as some ingredients that you’ll want to look for there when considering alternatives. And then it’s really about creating that lifestyle to nourish your body. So once you’ve ruled out those sensitivities, we want to focus just like you think of like, oh, I need to get a supplement, I need to take the right vitamins. What we want to do is focus on providing our body with 80%, just focusing on good nourishment, good vegetables, good fruits, high-quality protein, getting those healthy fats that help to support hormone health, and getting those into our meals. And then if we have some not as ideal dairy or if we have some sweet treats and things along the way and we plan those in a quantity and in an amount and a distribution that works well with our body because we’re listening to the feedback that it’s giving us, then we can really, truly live that full life and enjoy all the foods that we like in Moderation while still making sure that our plate is full of nourishing food to make sure that we have the nutrients our body needs and that we are sustaining our energy and controlling our cravings and keeping our blood sugar in control and ultimately giving our body the tools that it needs to function the way we want.

Okay, so I’m curious, let me know on Instagram, have you ever gone dairy free, and do you think it helped your PCOS symptoms? What was your experience? You can find me on Instagram over at Nourish to Healthy and I would love to hear what you have found to be the case for you because the word on the street of removing dairy is surprisingly really helpful for some and really just kind of not all that exciting for others. Some people really have a hard time removing dairy. So I would love to hear your thoughts and your experiences over on Instagram. So go ahead and leave me a message over there. So there you have it, my friend. All of the most current information about dairy and PCOS and I will include a bunch of the links and articles on the references for this information because a lot of this is things that I have just even been reading. I have seen it to all be true in the women that I have worked with. But this is all fairly new information, articles, and things that I have gathered for you for this episode. And I’m going to include all of those articles links for you over on the web page for this episode.

So if you have found this episode to be helpful, please hit the subscribe button now so that you’ll be notified each week when the next PCOS Health topic becomes available. And if I could ask you to just take a minute of your time to rate and review this podcast, I would greatly appreciate it. A good rating helps spread awareness of PCOS and helps other women that need support to discover this podcast. Until next time, if you have any questions about this episode or any of the other episodes of the PCOS Repair podcast, I invite you to again connect with me over on Instagram, that’s @nourishedtohealthy so that we can continue the conversation. Until then, bye for now.

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