processed carbohydrates in favour of those you can ‘pick, gather or milk’. Also emphasizes the importance of ‘good’ fats: eggs, butter, flaxseed oil, olive oil. The principle is helpful for PCOS symptoms but the diet itself, which emphasizes high-cholesterol foods, would have to be altered to meet the needs of women with PCOS.
Fad diets look simple, and sometimes they can give short-term results. But no matter how sophisticated a fad diet sounds, the great majority operate on one doomed, ill-fated tactic: drastic calorie reduction. These doomed diets usually deprive your body of essential nutrients, exacerbate your symptoms, may trigger overeating due to deprivation and often make it more difficult to lose weight in the long run. They may even add complications you don’t need and put your health at risk.
Once you are on your healthy eating path and reaping the benefits, it’s time to think about stage 2: your diet and lifestyle detox.
There are many things in our day-to-day lives which can make the symptoms of PCOS worse, or push a woman who has PCO (without any symptoms) into developing PCOS (with symptoms).
Every day, a sea of potentially hormone-disturbing toxins surrounds you, from environmental chemicals in solvents, plastics and adhesives to toxins in makeup, moisturizers, nail polish, hair dyes and shampoos. Even food and soil are inundated with pesticides and herbicides, not forgetting the contaminants and parasites in the water you drink, and the chemicals and additives added to refined processed food which detract from the nutritional content of the food.
Our bodies don’t need or want any of these chemicals, and have to work hard to process (metabolize) them and get rid of them (detoxify). In the process of metabolizing these toxins, our bodies lose vital nutrients – nutrients we need to feel healthy and beat the symptoms of PCOS.
WHERE DO THESE TOXINS COME FROM?
Literally anywhere, from pesticide residues on food to the environmental poisons in our air and water, and the high-sugar, preserved and processed fast foods in our diet. The landmark 1989 Kellogg Report stated that there are now over 1,000 newly-synthesized compounds introduced each year, which amounts to around 20 new chemicals a week. But many of these chemicals are not ordinary chemicals. They are petrochemicals, found in pesticides, plastics, household cleaners, car exhausts and even makeup. Petrochemicals are known as xenobiotics or xenoestrogens.
Hormone-disturbing Chemicals
Environmental scientist Theo Colburn first brought xenoestrogens to the public’s attention. Xenoestrogens, or endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDC), are widely recognized as highly toxic in the smallest doses. Most importantly for women with PCOS, they are characterized as ‘hormone-disrupters’ because these petrochemicals have a molecular structure similar to the hormone oestrogen.
EDCs interfere with the natural process of your hormones, preventing them from producing the natural response in much the same way that a vehicle parked across an entrance prevents other vehicles from getting out or in. They create hormonal havoc by tricking your body into a condition known as oestrogen excess or oestrogen dominance. For women with PCOS who are often exposed to chronic levels of oestrogen without the balancing effects of progesterone anyway, oestrogen dominance can trigger a wide variety of PCOS symptoms, from irregular periods to acne, dry hair and weight gain.
In 1999, the Federal Environmental Agency in Germany published a list of pesticides to be confirmed as potential endocrine-disrupters, including pesticides used on food, wood preservatives, paints and plastics. The research necessary to confirm conclusively which chemicals are EDCs is still being carried out, however the Environmental Agency has stated that there should be action to reduce further environmental exposure while this research is on going.
There is little scientific evidence about how a poor diet and exposure to EDCs affect women with PCOS, but we know enough to suggest that exposure to potentially hormone-disrupting toxins and eating an unhealthy diet don’t benefit those who are well and healthy, let alone someone who may have a condition or potential hormonal imbalance like PCOS. ‘Humans are exposed daily to chemicals that have been shown or suggested to have hormone-disrupting properties,’ states a June 2000 Royal Society Report. ‘Despite the uncertainty, it is prudent to minimize the exposure to humans, especially pregnant women, to endocrine-disrupting chemicals.’ Taking measures to avoid hormone-disrupting chemicals in the food we eat and in our environment can help reduce the toxic load for women with PCOS, and protect us from added hormonal disturbance.
Research in 2002 from Brunel University reported on a five-year study which found that sex changes in male fish in some UK rivers were caused by synthetic oestrogens in the river water (which contained sewage waste which included the urine of women on the Pill). Dr Susan Toblin was quoted as saying, ‘One could argue we are living in a sea of oestrogen, a chemical cocktail, and therefore I think there are real reasons to be worried about health and fertility.’
YOUR BODY’S IN-HOUSE DETOX SYSTEM
Your liver, kidneys and adrenal glands work extremely hard to keep your hormones functioning efficiently and you feeling healthy. They are crucial for the removal of potentially harmful toxins which can disrupt your hormonal systems and trigger the symptoms of PCOS.
Your liver is a chemical clearing workaholic. It cleans one-and-a-half quarts of blood every minute of the day, so that other organs can be nourished by purified blood. It also neutralizes toxic wastes, sending them off to the next detox organ, the kidneys, for elimination. The liver also removes excess hormones (such as oestrogen), thereby maintaining hormonal balance, produces enzymes and amino acids to metabolize fat, proteins and carbs, stores nutrients, makes and processes cholesterol, produces bile during the digestive process for fat metabolism, and regulates blood-sugar levels for energy.
Alcohol, drugs, fatty foods, highly refined foods, smoking, drugs, the Pill and other environmental toxins, from pesticides and exhaust fumes to hair sprays and petrol, can overload the liver. Whether you have PCOS or not, if toxins clog up the liver’s detoxification
