I talk a lot about diet and food when dealing with PCOS as this is a major part of naturally treating the condition. A Polycystic Ovary Syndrome diet can be a complex thing for many women to grasp though. As such I wanted to talk a little more in depth about a few aspects of PCOS and food.

Proteins

Maintaining good levels of protein is very important. Protein helps your body do a few things such as:

• Building and repairing body tissues.
• Producing enzymes, hormones, and other substances the body uses.
• Regulating your body processes, such as transporting nutrients, and making muscles contract.
• Keeps the body healthy by resisting diseases
• Produces stamina and energy.

Some of these are more important than others in combating PCOS but the bottom line is protein is very helpful and sometimes when we go on diets to lose weight (which is needed to stop PCOS) we forget about protein.

Try to get your protein from sources that are low in fat however including chicken, fish, low fat cheese and soy.

Fats

Speaking of fats, not all fast are bad. We are often led to believe that all fats are some sort of evil designed to make us expand like balloons but the truth is more complex.

You may have heard of essential fatty acids or omega 3 fats which are actually very good for you. These fats can be found in fish primarily such as mackerel, salmon and sardines. These are fats you want more of.

The worst sorts of fats however are called trans-fats. These are chemically “changed” fats that have a very bad reputation among nutritionists. Products such as margarine are trans-fatty for instance and have had many studies linking them with diabetes. This should make those with insulin resistance and PCOS take note. Check on the ingredients labels of foods and if they have partially hydrogenated on it then try to avoid them as much as possible.

Carbohydrates

Carbs are essential to give you energy you need to do basically everything! However carbs are good for you or bad for you depending on the TYPE of carbohydrate. For those that might not be up to speed on this a quick rundown is as follows.

• Complex carbs are found in unrefined foods usually and take longer to digest and thus release sugars into the body slowly. This helps your body cope with blood sugar levels and makes your insulin resistance less problematic.
• Simple Carbs are the opposite. They are digested quickly and send your blood sugar through the rood very quickly provoking a response for insulin in your body which floods the hormone pathways creating the imbalances that cause PCOS symptoms.

So if people tell you to go on a low carb diet they are not totally informed of the whole picture. Make sure you eat complex carbs and cut out the simple carbs and you will manage your blood sugar levels better and it will help you lose weight as well.

All of this and more is outlined in the recommended book on this site: Natural Ovarian Cysts Relief Secrets

However another publication that deals with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Diet help can be found on amazon here:

The Insulin-Resistance Diet–Revised and Updated: How to Turn Off Your Body’s Fat-Making Machine

This is quite a good book too actually but I feel its total focus on diet does not cover the entire holistic approach needed to get rid of PCOS for good.

Insulin resistance, PCOS and the symptoms of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome are all linked together in a chain. I often talk about insulin resistance being the root cause of PCOS and wanted to spend a little more time today delving into this matter.

What is Insulin Resistance?

This is a condition where the body does not respond well to insulin. Insulin is a hormone that takes sugars in the blood and uses them to power the body, in a normal person cells in the body always accept insulin to enter and power their functions. When you have insulin resistance your cells for some reason do not always accept insulin. This results in high blood sugar levels because the sugars are not being dealt with which in turn makes the body release MORE insulin to counter it.

The result is what is known as hyperinsulinemia or too much insulin in the blood. This is what starts the hormonal imbalance in the body that characterises PCOS.

What Causes Insulin Resistance?

There is no known exact cause of this condition. Some say is is genetic and you are born with it and other say that lack of exercise and obesity causes it. However insulin resistance may also be the cause of obesity too. The chick and the egg question really. Insulin Resistance and PCOS are not always together though. If you have PCOS you do have insulin resistance but if you have insulin resistance you may not have PCOS. In fact if you conquer PCOS you may still have insulin resistance but you manage it so well it will not bother you.

What to do about Insulin Resistance

Dealing with insulin resistance, PCOS and the symptoms of PCOS are all the same thing. What must be done is to control your blood sugar and also to keep a balance to your hormones. This is sometimes hard to grasp but when you think of your internals like a machine that reacts to what you put into it and how you use it you can almost visualise the levels of insulin, androgens, estrogen and so forth that all must function properly to be free of PCOS.

A lot of this is diet related but there are many other facets phsyically and then there is the wntire mental game that makes or breaks your efforts.

I highly recommend Natural Ovarian Cysts Relief Secrets which has helped many people including my sister to overcome PCOS and insulin resiatance not just temporarily but for the long term.

Knowing what causes ovarian cysts & PCOS is something every women who has suffered from the associated symptoms should know. The understanding gained by uncovering the root reasons behind the cysts is helpful for piece of mind but also to begin to implement treatment as well.

First however we must distinguish between ovarian cysts and the condition known as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS).

• Ovarian Cysts are a naturally occurring phenomenon inside a woman’s body. Most pre-menopausal women develop cysts at some stage but most are small and quickly shrink again. Others however can continue to grow and become very painful to which some doctors recommend surgical removal. This can cause its own complications however …
• PCOS is a conditions characterized by many ovarian cysts but most are not of enormous size. This leads to many problems that those without PCOS but with a large cyst may not get.  So all women with PCOS have cysts but not all women with cysts have PCOS.

Click here for more detailed explanations in ‘Natural Ovarian Cysts Relief Secrets‘

What causes Ovarian Cysts?

Ovarian cysts as has been said are naturally occurring and happen when the follicles inside the ovary that produce the egg each month do not function correctly.

Usually the follicles go through a stage where they grow in size and release the hormone estrogen which prepares the uterus for the egg. One follicle will eventually release an egg and the egg sack then becomes a “corpus luteum” which then produces progesterone which is another hormone. This tells the other follicles in the ovary to shrink or dissolve and to wait for the next time around, this cycle continues every month as a part of your regular menstrual cycle.

This does not always happen though. A Ovarian Cyst is formed when the follicles grow but none release an egg. Because no corpus luteum is formed no progesterone is produced to tell the other eggs to shrink and so the follicles grow larger and larger each cycle as more estrogen is produced. This can continue until cysts become so large they cause extreme pain from pressing into your organs or twisting in your body or even bursting inside of you. Sometimes this will right itself before these problems happen if the body adjusts the hormone levels correctly and the cysts shrink. This usually happens but is not always the case.

What Causes PCOS?

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome has a similar root cause to over-sized cysts in that it is a condition caused by hormonal imbalance. The immediate reason for the symptoms of PCOS is that your body is producing more male hormone androgens than is healthy for a female. Androgens are male hormones that naturally occur in women and are essential for many things but when elevated these hormones like testosterone and others lower estrogen production which in turn means that eggs are often not released, stopping the progesterone production from a burst egg sack which causes the cysts to continue to grow.

This severe hormonal imbalance is the cause of the symptoms but not the root cause of PCOS. To know more about this we need to dig a little deeper and look at something called insulin resistance.

What is Insulin Resistance?

Insulin is another hormone in your body that is mainly responsible for converting glucose (sugars) in your blood stream into energy to be used for everything our body does! Insulin resistance is when the body does not recognize much of your insulin and so it become ineffective at changing glucose into energy. Your body reacts by secreting more and more insulin so that the glucose eventually will be converted due to the large amount of insulin but at the cost of escalating your insulin levels to a huge number!

This has consequences.

For many women this leads to PCOS as this insulin imbalance causes the ovaries to produce more androgen which leads to all of the problems you suffer with this condition.

For a complete guide on how to overcome ovarian cysts and PCOS from the root causes all the way up to the awful symptoms visit Ovarian Cyst Cures for more information.