PCOS – Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, what you should know.

PCOS has now been recognized as perhaps the most common of all hormone disorders affecting women. It is sometimes called PCOD for Disorder. Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is a hormonal imbalance linked to the way the body processes insulin.
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health, Stanford University and other research centers have clearly identified the existence and effects of Insulin Resistance, as the cause of PCOS. The side effects of this imbalance can create:

  • Irregular menstruation (fewer than eight cycles per year)
  • Excess facial/body hair,
  • Elevated male hormone levels or multicystic ovaries.
  • Obesity
  • Acne
  • Elevated Lipids
  • Heart Disease
  • Endromentrial Cancer
  • Adult-onset diabetes

What Really Causes PCOS?

Your body breaks down foods into a sugar (glucose) which then enters your blood stream. The more sugar and carbohydrates you eat, the higher your blood sugar goes. The higher the blood sugar the more your body produces insulin.
Insulin’s job is to push the blood sugar into the cells.

On the surface of the cells in your body are insulin receptors, which act like little doors that open and close to regulate the inflow of blood sugar.

After many years of consuming a high sugar and high carbohydrate diet, your cells have been bombarded with so much insulin that these doors begin to malfunction and shut down.

With less doors open, your body needs to produce even more insulin to push the glucose into the cells. More insulin causes even more doors to close and as this vicious cycle continues, the condition called “insulin resistance“ sets in.

This insulin resistance can get so bad that your body can no longer produce enough insulin to push the blood sugar into the cells. The blood sugar then rises out of control resulting in type 2 diabetes. Diabetes is simply an extreme case of insulin resistance.

Why does it cause PCOS?

Insulin resistance leads to having high insulin levels in the blood. The ovaries seem to be particularly sensitive to this.

Yes, this leads to other things.

The high levels of insulin in the blood stimulates the ovaries to produce large amounts of male hormones which may prevent the ovaries form releasing eggs, thus causing infertility.

This response of over producing male hormones (androgen) causes the PCOS symptoms such as excessive hair growth, male pattern baldness and acne.

This upsets the delicate balance of hormones which has a direct effect on weight gain and the formation of ovarian cysts.

There is more to this:

3 Causes of PCOS

Here is the information about this by Dr. Eric Berg

PCOS

For Help understand Insulin Resistance and for Maintaining Healthy Blood Sugar Levels

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