Elevate Fertility: Winning Against PCOS

Angelau2019s PCOS Diagnosis Story 0:00

Welcome, Angela. It's so great to have you here today. I'm very excited to dive into the world of PCOS, which you just do such a great job educating people that struggle with PCOS. How did you get into this? What brought you into PCOS world? Great. It's so nice to be here. And yeah, I always welcome the opportunity to talk about PCOS. It's a condition that I have. I was diagnosed in my late twenties after seeing many different doctors before officially getting the correct diagnosis. And any time that I have the opportunity to help other people with PCOS, I'm really appreciative of it.

I love helping people become parents. Yeah, also, that's what we're all about. Helping people become parents. So thank you for joining me today. What in your experience PCOS is like what into women that struggle with PCOS also struggle with fertility. So what are the things that we should focus on if someone has PCOS or suspects that she has PCOS that will help her support her fertility and get pregnant when she's ready? Yeah. So PCOS is the main cause of anovulatory infertility

PCOS, Ovulation, and Fertility Basics 1:32

and basically what's happening. And the research really shows that most people with PCOS do go on to get pregnant. They overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, majority of people with PCOS will get pregnant and have babies, but it take a little bit longer, could be a little bit harder. And we see a connection with for equality. There's tons of follicles there. If they measure somebody's AMH level Anti-Mullerian Hormone level, it's tend to be really high. So there's tons of follicles. It's just part of the problem is that there are immature follicles and lack of ovulation and irregular periods helping to restore ovulation and improve quality is an area of focus and that's what I like to help people do as improve their quality.

And that can be done through food and exercise and supplements and sometimes medications if needed, and then helping to regulate periods and balance out the hormones a little bit better. Yeah. Awesome. So what kinds of things can we do to maybe looks like break it down into chunks? So what are the things that we could do to maybe support ovulation? Yeah, so ovulation can really be supported by eating a healthy diet that includes plenty of whole grains and antioxidants. So antioxidants help to support equality.

So we're talking about omega three fats. We're talking about whole grains, we're talking about fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds. These are all great foods to include in antioxidants, to help support ovulation And then we can also look at supplements. For example, Vitamin D has been shown to be really crucial in helping to support ovulation. And most people, as are lacking in vitamin D, I don't know how many in Texas, but here where I am. It's pretty rampant. It's it's pretty rampant problem everywhere in the U.S.

for sure. I think we just don't spend enough time outside. Yeah, like we and even if we did spend the time outside,

Diet and Exercise for Supporting Ovulation 3:34

we would need it in our bodies to actually convert to the active form of vitamin D, which is all that the sun does. So yeah, it's just it's a double whammy. So knowing your vitamin D level and supplementing with vitamin D can be really helpful for ovulation and and exercise. So even just walking, believe it or not, it doesn't seem like much, but it's getting your body moving can support ovulation as well. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. And then in terms of exercise, is there any specific exercises that you think are very helpful for women with PCOS or the things that they should maybe avoid?

Because I feel like there is there's the people that will like push themselves, the high achievers that are like and try to do everything. I'm going to spend 3 hours at the gym every day, so I'm curious if you have any tips on what kind of exercises specifically helpful? Yeah, absolutely. The recommendation I always give is the kind of exercise that you like to do because you're more likely to keep doing it and it'll be part of your routine, whether that's walking, even walking your dog. Ideally, we like to see a combination of resistance, training, lifting some weights as well as some cardiovascular aerobic exercise.

But again, whatever you enjoy, there's no need to kill yourself. In fact, there is some research out there that shows that's not helpful for getting pregnant. But moderate amounts of exercise, both strength and aerobics, are really helpful for fertility. Lovely. Okay. So we talked about the ovulation piece, fruits and vegetables, antioxidant diet, eat whole foods, not the processed foods I like for everybody. And then focusing on movement. And I feel like there was one more piece around ovulation supplements.

Supplements, of course. Are there any specific supplements that you find helpful specifically for ovulation? Vitamin D is the key we talked about. And then another one is Inositol, specifically Myo Inositol. And this is a member or a relative of the B vitamins and it acts as a secondary messenger to relay signals between your pancreas and your cell receptors, your receptors. And so it does help your body to use glucose and insulin better. But we're also finding that in the uterus that the follicular fluid is actually really high.

In Myo Inositol and PCOS, there might be a defect in the ability to use and also tall and also targets converted into another just converted from D-Chiro Inositol and we're seeing that's really ineffective for my chiro and so it's depleting levels of myo and that's what's really helpful

Key Supplements for Ovulation and Egg Quality 6:30

for improving equality as well as ovulation. Perfect inositol and vitamin D high up on the list for supporting ovulation also. And then myo inositol also helps with egg quality. So let's talk a little bit about depleted equality for women with PCOS, kind of this immature follicles like what can they do to help support this development? Yeah, a lot of the same strategies. So the antioxidants can really help with that. And then those supplements like Vitamin D Inositol, we also see that fish oil, that DHEA and the EPA can be really effective and certainly as needed for pregnancy, too.

So these are all key. We also see like some advanced supplements like Coenzyme Q10 can also support equality. Help makes to mature, and then just overall managing PCOS and the hormones can really help with the equality in helping those follicles to mature. Yeah. So irregular cycles being one of the key symptoms and outcomes really of PCOS. What in your experience helps to regulate the hormones, regulate the cycle so that women with irregular cycles can get more to like maybe they don't get to 28 days, but it's like 30 to 34 days, like a reasonable amount.

Yeah. So eating a balanced diet can be really helpful. And we also see that getting the regular exercise is really helpful. Taking those supplements, Vitamin D and Inositol can be really helpful. And then just even getting more sleep. We see that lack of sleep can throw off your cycle and it's a woman's is certainly important for stress reduction and keeping cortisol down so all of these lifestyle strategies together can be really effective. Inositol though there's really good data that shows myo inositol can help regulate periods, so that can be really effective for getting those cycles more regulated.

Awesome. So Myo Inositol is like the triple and for PCOS, Alia as well, support ovulation support equality. So for regular periods. Absolutely. And there's a lot of good research is probably the most well studied supplements for people with PCOS. Yeah. Mm hmm. And so I believe it or not, like, I find it tricky. I know the research is out there is so amazing. There's so many studies on this and I have given it to people and they're like, no change. Like maybe helps with that quality, but we don't know for sure.

I'm curious if there's any like tidbits that you find that you're like, Oh, it really works if you do X, Y, Z, yeah. And inositol doesn't work for everybody. I think like 20% of people would take and it's not effective, but to know if it really is effective, you have to take it consistently. You have to take it at the right dose and you have to take it for the right amount of time. We recommend at least three months to really have those aides to develop and see what happens and give you time to track your cycle.

Awesome. And then do you have I've seen all kinds of data on how much at my own hospital. So what's your recommended dose on how much to take per day?

Regulating Cycles and Managing Stress 9:58

Yeah, everybody is different. I usually recommend the ratio of 40 to 1 mile to D-Chiro. This is what is in most of the tissues in the body and there's some pretty good data that shows that's more effective than either taking Myo and all Cytology Chiro on its own. So this 40 to 1 ratio, the dose comes out to 2000 milligrams of myo Inositol and 50 milligrams of D Cairo Inositol and taking that once a day. So I usually recommend taking it with foods. So take it with breakfast and then take it with ginger, getting that in twice a day for three months and see the full effects of any response.

Okay. I love it. I love it in terms of other supplements that you like for PCOS, maybe, what do you think about Berberine? I think we get a lot of good results with that one. What's your experience? Yeah, berberine. It's been around a long time. I know it's new to a lot of people, but it's ancient herb. It's always been used for the treatment of insulin resistance and diabetes. It's really good for that. The research is mixed as far as like how well it helps with fertility. There's some research out there that shows that it does and then we just don't have enough.

Overall, I feel enough data to show that it's like the go to for people with PCOS. I think it does help a lot of people. It does help with lowering testosterone and it can help. West We see even helping with body fat mass and again, the insulin. So the only thing that we don't really know is the data in pregnancy. I don't recommend that it's someone else get pregnant. I do recommend that they stop it because we don't have any. Yeah. We don't have any safety data on that. I want you to yeah. After I hear the interestingly as much data that we have, I feel like there is very little research being done on what's safe in pregnancy.

And my suspicion is a lot of these herbs are perfectly fine, but there is enough herbs that we know that are like, absolutely not. That is not safe in pregnancy, that it makes us nervous, right? I'm definitely like, Oh, no, let's just get you off of it because doing it. Sure. And I'll do that for most supplements and herbs because I just don't like to take a I. Take the rest. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Any other favorite supplement? I mentioned the CoQ10. That's always a really good one. And resveratrol is another one that's a potent antioxidant that can really help improve ovulation and equality.

And I'm just thinking of a good prenatal that's going to help support your pregnancy. I think good prenatal should have choline in it. It should also have earned it should have a good amount of vitamin D because vitamin D levels in pregnancy get deplete at at least 2000 international units is what I recommend.

Prenatal Nutrition and PCOS-Friendly Foods 13:00

I agree with all of those and those are hard to find prenatal with actually, decent amounts of choline is really you do need to. Take a lot of pills and that you need to you don't see a lot of supplements but a lot of DHA. It's usually not supper. That's that fish oil. It's usually a separate pill that's given with the prenatal and it's just a big pill. So you can't just put it all in one package. Yeah, pretty challenging to find it all in one. It's like the right kinds of nutrients, making sure the vitamin D is the D3 and fully right and yeah.

Yeah. Just all of the things that need to be checked on a prenatal is so rare. Absolutely. And any in terms of tips for PCOS or women that are struggling with this, anything else that you want to add to food, lifestyle and and supplements? I think those three pillars are really foundational and certainly create the right environment for women with PCOS to have a healthy pregnancy. I'm curious if you would add anything else there? Yeah, the only other things I would add to those main pillars is sleep, because we do see a connection of lack of sleep and infertility and stress management because high cortisol levels can deplete progesterone and that doesn't help anything.

Yes. So let's actually let's touch on that, because I think it's I can't we can't stress that enough. What is what about the cortisol going up causes the progesterone to struggle. Right. So the adrenal glands produce the cortisol and that can affect progesterone levels. So progesterone is a calming hormone and you're going to be depleted of that. You have too much of your stress hormones, cortisol, and if you don't have enough progesterone, that's going to affect your ability to get it. Really. Progesterone is produced with ovulation, right?

It's going to extrapolation your ability to implant the embryo. Awesome. Focusing on high quality sleep. I call any food. Are there any foods that you love for women with PCOS beyond the eat a healthy Whole Foods diet if there's any oh you must have. Tried this for PCOS. Those are going to be foods that have a lot in them. They have like fat. They're going to have protein, they're going to have antioxidants. So I would say salmon is a go to you is safe to have in pregnancy, too. Avocados, they have a lot of good omega three fats and it's an antioxidant.

And really berries are really dark in color. They have tons of antioxidants, olive oil. These are all really great food. Love it, thank you so much. I love like getting other people's takes on what's there, what are the heavy hitters so that for those of us lost again like you can think about are these foods in your diet on a regular basis? Right. Like we don't have to supplement everything. And the super foods can really make a huge difference in creating the foundation through food, through diet, to not have to over a supplement.

Absolutely. You should be able to get most of your nutrients or food. Vitamin D might be an extra one that you might need more of. And in pregnancy, we do recommend a prenatal that's getting in good quality foods, really important. Lots of vegetables, green leafy for the folate. Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. I love the ease of this plan. Food supplement lifestyle. So eating should not be like that. Going to have enough to deal with if enough on their plate or to speak. So this is just one thing to take the stress off, eat a variety of foods, look at the nutrient quality and practice just good lifestyle habits.

Yep. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me today. This is lovely and we will look forward to your amazing tips coming up in our podcast. Thank you so Much Thank you.