Greetings, Eric Bakker from New Zealand, the naturopath.
Thanks for coming back and checking out my video.
I've got a question here from a lady in England from, I think it's Worcester you call it.
But it looks like Worcestershire.
Worcestershire.
Cathy Juno from Worcestershire in England.
Now Cathy has got a question on polycystic ovarian syndrome, chocolate cysts.
Chocolate cysts, ovarian cysts, and how can I treat them effectively with natural medicine?
Well, Cathy, let's talk about that.
Let's do a bit of a video on PCOS or PCOS, or polycystic ovarian disease, or polycystic
ovarian syndrome.
There are many different ways we term it.
Polycystic ovaries is different from polycystic ovarian syndrome or disease because PCOS,
or PCOD, is more a term we use with menstrual irregularities and ovarian cysts.
Ovarian cysts are not something new, they've been around for probably as long as women
have been around.
In fact, since really the advent of ultrasound, ultrasonography, doctors have become a lot
more adept at diagnosing ovarian cysts.
But many, many women ... As far as I know, up to 5% or even up to 15% of normal healthy
women have got cysts around the ovaries.
They generally don't usually cause a lot of problems.
But it's when the ovarian cyst become larger or more frequent or more of them, and there
are menstrual irregularities, that you actually develop a disease or syndrome around these
cysts, which we call polycystic ovarian syndrome.
These cysts actually are very, very small, but what happens is many women who develop
this problem often have menstrual irregularities going right back even at the [mena 00:01:45]
or the beginning of their menstruation.
So if they carry a little bit of weight, they've had menstrual irregularities at a young age,
the cysts tend to stay quite small.
They tend to develop too many of these male hormones called androgens, which tend to keep
the ovaries quite small and hard, and not allow them to be big.
So these women also tend to have a problem with two hormones in particular: luteinizing
hormone and follicle stimulating hormone.
They don't develop enough follicle stimulating hormone and too much luteinizing hormone.
That in the presence of these male hormones keeps the cysts very small, and it stops regular
ovulation and menstruation from occurring.
Hence, this irregularity with menstruation.
I run a whole webpage on this.
If you go to ericbakker.com you can read my page on polycystic ovarian syndrome or ovarian
cysts.
You can look it up if you want.
Erratic cycles ... Let's look at some of the signs and symptoms of PCOS.
Erratic cycles, so many of these women will end up having issues with menstruation; They
don't have a regular 28-day cycle, 30-day cycle.
They've got quite an irregular cycle.
Excess weight before menstruation, so they can get a bit of fluid retention or plump
up.
They're prone to acne of course, and also prone to Hirsutism.
Hirsutism is male or sort of masculine hair growth.
They may get a bit of hair on the upper lip.
They may get a bit of hair on the chin or around the nipples.
These are sort of signs of high male hormones in the body, and that often, as I mentioned,
is what keeps these cysts the way they are and causes this erratic ovulation.
Also, up to 75% will become infertile, unfortunately.
So a high degree of these women if they've got quite a lot of cysts, may not actually
have a child until they lose weight, which we'll talk a little about later on.
What do we do about sort of condition?
It's a real problem these days.
Endometriosis, which is a bit different -- I'll talk about it on another video -- and polycystic
ovarian syndrome are actually quite common.
Many women I've seen in the clinic over the years have got PCOS.
In medicine, what they tend to do is they tend to look really at progesterone kind of
treatments, particularly from ovulation through the period.
They stop the progesterone before the period so that menses can happen, sort of like mimic
a natural cycle.
They also protect the endometrium from exposure from too high much estrogen, because what
happens also is they get the development of too much E1.
There are three estrogens in the body: you've got estrone, E1, estradiol, E2, and estriol,
E3.
So estradiol or E2, is the most powerful hormone.
It's very strong, it's thousands times more stronger than estriol, for example, the weakest
one.
The body produces more than one type of estrogen to actually help protect the body from too
much E2, because when E2 breaks down to hydroxy and methoxy estrogens ... We're getting a
bit complicated now.
These breakdown products of E2 can actually be initiators for breast cancer and certain
types of endometrial cancers, ovarian cancer for example, under the presence of these high
breakdown products.
So E3 is protective.
But E1 gets produced a little bit too much, the estrone gets produced too much under the
presence of the male hormone.
It will push that marker up, and that can be quite dangerous too.
Even a weaker estrogen, if made too much, can be actually a precursor to breast cancer
or a gynecological cancer.
We don't want any kind of estrogen too high, so doctors tend to be very cautious of protecting
the body from high estrogen levels by offsetting it with other kind of hormonal drugs.
Doctors also may give a drug like Clomifene to initiate fertility cycles, because remember
a high percentage of women with PCOS end up being infertile.
But from the studies I read, a 5 to 10 kilograms -- so 10 to 20 pound weight loss -- can improve
fertility chances by 70% or greater in PCOS.
So it's very important that you look at weight loss.
If you're carrying weight and you've got irregular menses, for goodness sakes lose weight.
Look at the calorie intake.
Don't drink alcohol at all if you've got a menstrual irregularity.
It's bad news, very bad news to do that.
Alcohol is really hard on the body.
A small amount, I think one gram, is seven calories, compared to one gram of fat, which
is nine calories.
So I often tell women that a big double cheeseburger is probably less fattening than a large glass
of Pinot, Pinot noir wine.
A big glass of wine will have more calories in it than a double cheeseburger.
If you don't believe me, go and look it up on Google.
Drinking wine regularly, one to two glasses per day, if you're a female with polycystic,
is a crazy thing to do because it will not only ensure you're in the BBC -- the Big Bum
Club, not the BBC as in the TV kind of BBC -- but it will also ensure you that you're
in the BLT, the Big Low Tummy club.
The apple shaped club, the big low tum.
When you get too big, you'll also develop insulin resistance, so your body has to pump
out more and more insulin all the time to try and handle blood sugar.
What happens is you're gonna end up with a lot of blood sugar circulating in the body
because of too much insulin that's being pumped in there.
You're gonna get a lot of problems.
You could end up with diabetes.
In fact, up to 80% of type 2 diabetic women have got some kind of ovarian cyst problem.
It's very, very important if you're carrying weight and you're female, is to lose that
weight, and to try and lose even five or 10 pounds of that weight because it's going to
help to normalize your cycle.
The less fat you carry, the less risk of cancers and many different diseases that you don't
wanna know of.
Fiber is a very powerful addition to the diet if you've got PCOS.
Fiber helps to really improve the bowel function, and it also helps to stop you from being hungry
all the time.
It's a very powerful thing to do, is to eat more fiber and better quality fibers in your
diet, especially vegetables and good quality fruits.
We spoke about the alcohol.
The fiber, [inaudible 00:08:28] emptying, and also is important for estrogen detoxification
by eating the right kinds of fiber because fiber helps to improve bowel function; Good
bowel motions help to pull out the estrogen, the breakdown products, which lowers your
risk of them being taken up again and turning into toxic residues stimulating cancer.
I also recommend exercise, of course, regularly for people with any kind of weight issue,
or endometriosis, or PCOS.
It's going to dramatically help you.
Detoxification is very important but you do not do detox until the bowel is working properly.
It's a stupid idea to do it.
Get that bowel working well with the proper diet.
I've made enough videos now explaining about diet, so please look at some of my videos
on eating on this channel.
You improve the way you eat, you improve the bowel function, get some weight off, and watch
how that menstrual cycle starts really improving.
It's a really, really important thing to do with PCOS is to improve the quality of your
lifestyle and your diet.
It's the most powerful thing you can do in your ability.
In many cases, you won't even have to see the doctor anymore for drug treatments or
surgeries.
If you just follow a healthy diet and lifestyle, it's going to help you so much with this condition.
Many patients I've seen over the years have had successful pregnancies by following these
basic things I've talked about in this video.
Detoxification, liver cleansing.
See your practitioner, your functional medicine doctor or naturopath, about detoxification.
Make sure it's tailored specifically for your complaints, your condition, because there
are many different ways detoxification can be taken place.
I'm not really in liberty on this channel to give everybody individual advice on detoxification.
I get 30, 40, 50 questions a day and of course I just can't keep up with them anymore.
I can't really answer these questions, I've got too many questions.
But go and see your doctor or clinician who can help you with detox and some of the advice
I've given you for PCOS because you can really make a big difference.
Don't forget to click my link below or my free candida report.
Thanks for tuning in, and I hope that answers your question Cathy Juno from Worcestershire.
Thank-you.