But don’t panic. Your body responds brilliantly to any help you give it to help prevent these health problems arising. Start now and you can reduce your risks.
First, change your food.
Eating well, managing stress, sleeping well and exercising regularly go a long way to keeping the doctor away and reducing the long-term health risks related to PCOS.
Many medical studies have shown that healthy eating can manage such conditions as diabetes. But paying attention to your diet can do more than manage health conditions like diabetes, it may even be able to prevent them occurring in the first place.
Diabetes
A 2001 Finnish study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that a well-balanced diet can help to prevent diabetes in high-risk people. Researchers looked at over 500 overweight adults with impaired tolerance to glucose. The patients were divided into two groups, with the first group given advice from a nutritionist based on eating fewer fatty foods and more fruits and vegetables and cereals. They were also told about the benefits of exercise. The second group was not given this nutrition and exercise advice. After three years, 59 people in the second group developed diabetes, compared to only 27 in the group given eating and exercise guidelines.
Heart Protection
The British Heart Foundation dedicates itself to educating people about the dangers of high-fat, high-cholesterol diets. The message is clear: eating healthily can dramatically reduce your risk of a heart attack.
Increasing evidence has shown that eating five portions of fresh fruit and vegetables a day could cut the number of heart-disease and cancer deaths. In response to this evidence, doctors in one region of Britain have been prescribing vouchers which can be exchanged for fruit and vegetables. This experiment, taking place in the Wirral in the UK, aims to kick-start the changes in lifestyle and diet which can prevent illness.
Cancer
In 1997, the UK Government’s Department of Health Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy took a rare step in publishing a report entitled Nutritional Aspects of the Development of Cancer. The World Health Organization (WHO) also acknowledges the fundamental role nutritional well-being plays in human development and the prevention of diseases like cancer and heart disease. WHO Director General Harlem Brundtland states, ‘Nutrition is a cornerstone that affects and defines the health of all people rich and poor … malnutrition makes us all vulnerable to disease.’
Recent research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, studying 45,000 pairs of twins, found that cancer is largely caused by diet and lifestyle choices rather than inherited risk.17 Identical twins, who are genetically the same, were shown to have no more than a 15 per cent chance of developing the same cancer. This suggests that most cancers are at least 85 per cent due to environmental factors such as diet, lifestyle and exposure to toxic chemicals. This study found that choices about diet, smoking and exercise accounted for 58 to 82 per cent of the cancers studied.
Fertility Boost
Many fertility experts believe that a healthy diet can help you conceive and give birth to a healthy baby. It is among the first pieces of advice given to men and women thinking of starting a family. Research led by Leeds University Senior Registrar in Gynaecology, Dr Sara Matthews, on 215 UK women undergoing IVF treatment concluded that taking a daily multivitamin pill could boost a woman’s fertility and double her chances of getting pregnant.
Healthy Children
It is also thought that a healthy diet and exercise programme can safeguard the future health of your children. Professor David Barker, Director of the UK’s Medical Research Council Environmental Epidemiology Unit, warns that women who consistently eat poorly before conceiving could damage their baby’s health and put their baby at an increased risk of cardiovascular disease later in life.
So eating right not only helps you deal with the day-to-day reality of living with PCOS, but can protect your health and the health of any children you have in the long term, by reducing the risk of future health problems.
If You Have Polycystic Ovaries (PCO)
Not all women with polycystic ovaries have any of the accompanying PCOS symptoms, so are described as having PCO and not PCOS.18 For women with PCO, eating well now can help to prevent PCOS developing later.
If you are diagnosed with PCO, even though you may not feel unwell, environmental factors such as diet, stress and pollution can increase your risk of developing PCOS symptoms in the future. So you need to take extra care of yourself right now. A good diet is a sound investment for the future if you want to avoid PCOS.
GIVING YOUR MEDICATION A HELPING HAND
You may find that a change in diet is all you need to manage your symptoms, or you may decide to take some course of medicine, therapy or treatment once you are diagnosed with PCO/S. A good diet and nutritional programme is the essential foundation, in partnership with exercise for the management of PCOS. This type of programme works in conjunction with all kinds of medication for PCOS, from the Pill to fertility drugs, the diabetes drug Metformin and alternative therapies.
Dr Marilyn Glenville, one of the UK’s leading nutritional therapists who treats women with PCOS in her London and Tunbridge Wells clinics, believes that a healthy diet will maximize your chances of health and fertility if you decide to take the Pill or use fertility drugs.
Belinda Barnes, director of Foresight (an organization which aims to improve a couple’s fertility by giving advice about diet, nutritional supplementation, exercise and stress-management), says ‘those that have IVF after having completed a Foresight nutritional program have a 65 per cent live birth success rate compared to the 14 per cent national average.’
Dr Ann Walker, a medical herbalist and research scientist based at the University of Reading’s Hugh Sinclair Unit of Human Nutrition, explains that many herbalists and other complementary therapists will suggest beneficial changes to diet and lifestyle as the basis of good health. Walker believes that these are essential changes to make before herbalism, or any other medication, can come in and put the ‘icing on the cake’. ‘There is no point,’ she says, ‘in any medication coming in to suppress symptoms that are caused by a bad diet and unhealthy lifestyle. It is important to get the diet and lifestyle healthy first and then treat the remaining symptoms with medication. This often means that you need less medication, and what you do need works far more efficiently when the body is getting optimum nutrition in the first place.’
According to Gerard Conway, consultant gynaecologist at Middlesex Hospital, London, who has been working with women with PCOS to manage weight and improve symptoms using the diabetes drug Metformin, ‘Metformin is not a magic bullet and can only work if diet and exercise plans are already in place.’
There have been several studies reporting good results with Metformin for weight loss. However, the goal is to use Metformin in conjunction with diet and exercise to lose weight, otherwise the effect of Metformin appears to wear off and doses need to increase. ‘Weight gain often starts again unless there is a foundation of diet
