of women with POF do become pregnant. Sound nutrition may aid the function of the ovary, endometrium and endocrine glands, and otherwise do no harm. Medical treatments include HRT and the oral contraceptive pill. Women’s support groups can provide helpful advice (see p).
KEYS TO COMBATING INSULIN RESISTANCE
1 Return to eating three regular meals each day. This is vital in order to allow the liver to rest and renew its hormone-releasing cells.
2 Reducing the levels of saturated fats, refined sugars, starches and alcohol is also crucial in combating insulin resistance.
3 Limit fresh fruit to two pieces each day to control fructose intake as the fruit sugar also travels through the liver to be processed.
4 Changing from fatty meat and dairy foods to oily fish and nuts and seeds can help to suppress the liver’s release of saturated fatty acids.
5 Use only complex forms of carbohydrates such as oats, corn and rye, brown rice and legumes.
6 Forget high-sugar fizzy drinks and use filtered water or diluted fruit juices.
7 Try to cook many of your meals from fresh and keep convenience foods to a minimum to reduce intake of hidden sugars and saturated and trans fats.
8 Avoid all bovine dairy products (from cows), and use dairy alternatives from goat’s and ewe’s milk products to maintain calcium levels. Some soya milk has added calcium.
9 Eat more oily fish, nuts and seeds, and legumes to obtain protein foods.
10 Exercise is a very important tool to prevent the dangerous overload of fat build up in the blood. Even a moderate amount of exercise can help to prevent this build up. Getting off the bus or parking the car further away from work in order to have a brisk, 20-minute walk each day may be just the thing. This will reduce the fatty build up in the blood.
COMPLEMENTARY TREATMENTS FOR PCOS
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein
The herb Vitex agnus castus has been used since Egyptian times to normalize pituitary release of FSH and LH, and regulate menstrual cycles. It needs to be taken for four to six months to have an effect. The tincture form is the most potent, but tablets are also beneficial. These should only be taken under the guidance of a herbalist or nutritionist. Women with a pituitary adenoma or who are attempting pregnancy should not take agnus castus. You may take it in the three or four months before you wish to get pregnant, and then stop when you decide to try for conception.17
Vitamin E and zinc are known to balance testosterone, and pectin and guar gum are also thought to be helpful. Aromatherapy oils – geranium, bergamot, clary sage – may be used in the bath, and in base oil to massage the abdomen.
SUPPLEMENT REQUIREMENTS
These may be taken for three to four months to try and improve and correct menstrual function:
Multivitamins/minerals
Chromium polynicotinate
Zinc citrate or methionine
Digestive enzymes
Bioacidophilus
Evening primrose and fish oils
SUMMARY
1 Syndrome X or insulin resistance is related to refined carbohydrate consumption, and affects pancreatic production of the hormones insulin and glucose tolerance factor. All hormones work in relation to one another, and these hormones have a knock-on effect, leading to an imbalance of the steroid hormones of the ovary.
2 Hyperinsulinism triggers the follicle of the ovary to produce testosterone in excess. This stops the follicle from working properly. Women may become anovulatory.
3 Return to eating three regular meals each day, as this enables the liver to rest and renew its hormone-releasing cells.
4 Reducing the levels of saturated fats, refined sugars and alcohol is also crucial in combating insulin resistance.
5 Limit fresh fruit to two pieces each day to control fructose intake, as the fruit sugar also travels through the liver to be processed.
6 Change from fatty meat to oily fish, nuts and seeds to help suppress the liver’s release of saturated fatty acids. Avoid bovine dairy foods. Research done in Florida suggests that the protein isomer in milk and that in the pancreas may have the same shape, and could lead to the immune system targeting the pancreas tissue if milk intolerance occurs. This may be harmful in the long term to insulin-producing cells.
7 Use only complex forms of carbohydrates, such as oats and rye, brown rice and legumes.
8 Forget high-sugar fizzy drinks and use filtered water or diluted fruit juices. Avoid all aspartame-containing foods.
9 Try to cook many of your meals from fresh ingredients and keep convenience foods to a bare minimum to reduce intake of hidden sugars, and saturated and trans fats.
10 Follow the supplement and diet programme for three to four months, combined with a 10-minute exercise regime before breakfast. Insulin levels are low on waking and this enables easier metabolism of fat cells during exercise. Ten minutes of aerobics or yoga before breakfast is equivalent to 30 minutes of exercise later in the day.
4 Coping with the pain of endometriosis
Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature.
Michael Faraday, Physicist
Pain is defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary as ‘suffering, distress, of body or mind’. The Oxford American Dictionary defines it as ‘an unpleasant feeling caused by injury or disease of the body’. Endometriosis pain is dire, described by many as ‘exquisite’ because it takes over your life and colours your whole being, often leaving you stunned or unable to breathe. Pain is a signal that something is wrong within the body. Pain makes us adapt and do something to gain relief; it makes us react.
Chronic intractable pain, such as that from endometriosis, is exhausting. It saps our vitality and robs us of our pleasure in life. Doctors often diagnose and attempt to treat the cause of the pain, but they often fail to discuss the meaning of this pain so that we do not know what to expect in terms of our general well-being or our prospects for recovery. It is crucial that pain is taken seriously and not dismissed as being in the mind. Most women have great difficulty trying to explain to a sceptical doctor what is actually happening inside them. This adds to the anxiety, causing more tension and more pain.
Chronic pain is defined as ‘pain which lasts for longer than one month and cannot be relieved by conventional treatment methods’. With endometriosis the pain may be intermittent, but it is real and causes much unhappiness and anxiety. Sometimes it becomes so overwhelming that death would actually seem a welcome relief. When ovarian cysts burst, the pain can be so unreal, so breathtaking, one almost wonders how the body can survive it. Being kept awake night after night by extreme pain wears out the nerves and leaves the sufferer feeling frail and battered. Struggling through day after day of pain wears down the soul.
• CASE STUDY •
Jo R of London
I can happily say that over the past few months since seeing the nutritionist many of my symptoms have subsided and I can now carry on a normal life. I was getting all the typical endometriosis symptoms, the bloating, abdominal pain, heavy periods and bad indigestion. After being careful with the foods I eat and cutting out wheat and reducing dairy foods, it has made an amazing difference. The fatigue has gone and period pains are a thing of the past. Really at first it sounded that cutting out some foods would be hard, but once you feel the effects, it