- If you're sick and tired of the symptoms
of PCOS and also the lack of answers
about the root cause of PCOS that you may have been getting
from your healthcare provider,
then this is the video you've probably been looking for.
I'm going to go into detail about the root cause
of PCOS, not just what causes the symptoms,
and what you can do to start reversing
that root cause, today.
I'm Dr. Ken Berry,
a family physician with 20 years of clinical experience.
Let's talk about the ugly truth of PCOS.
Women really get a crappy deal when it comes
to the diagnosis and treatment of PCOS.
First of all, it takes the average woman 7 to 11 years
before she even receives a proper diagnosis of PCOS.
And then doctors who very often have gross misconceptions
about what PCOS is, wind up treating a lot
of the symptoms with different medications
but they very frequently, completely neglect to talk
about the root cause
and what you can do to reverse that.
PCOS, like many medical conditions is completely misnamed.
It was named back when all, we didn't know hardly
anything about endocrinology or hormones and how
they modulate all the physiological behaviors of your body.
The cysts are actually not cysts, they're follicles.
And the cysts on your ovaries actually
have nothing to do with the diagnosis of PCOS.
This is a leftover back when we just didn't know better,
it's still called PCOS but the cysts are not cysts.
And they are not the cause
of your PCOS they're actually caused by, the root cause
that I'm going to explain to you in a minute,
probably one to 5% of the cause
of PCOS is genetic.
You inherited the predisposition for that.
Probably one to 5% of the cause of PCOS
is your, actually your mom's metabolic health and her diet.
While you were cooking in her uterus
before you were even born.
So that leaves us with 90 or 95%
of the root cause that doctors don't seem to have a clue
about, when you go see your healthcare provider about PCOS,
all they want to talk about is drugs, drugs, and more drugs.
You might wind up getting glucophage.
You might wind up getting spironolactone.
You might wind up getting finasteride.
You might wind up getting clomiphene,
all, you're probably going to wind
up getting an oral contraceptive
or a combined contraceptive therapy.
None of these things treat the actual root cause
of your PCOS.
You deserve answers and you deserve a solution to your PCOS.
You've suffered long enough.
So let's get into this.
When your doctor checks the lab work
like your DHEA level, your total testosterone level,
your LH or FSH, your cortisol level, your prolactin level.
They're actually checking the distal
or distant leaves on the tree.
If we think about your PCOS diagnosis and cause as a tree,
the trunk of the tree would actually be the root cause.
The smaller branches
and leaves are the causes of different symptoms, right?
So all of the testing they're doing and all of
the drugs they're giving you are treating the little twigs
and leaves, the symptoms,
not the root cause, they completely ignore the trunk.
So what is the trunk?
The trunk or the root cause of your PCOS
is hyperinsulinemia.
You have chronically elevated levels
of insulin in your blood.
When your insulin is chronically elevated
it causes all of your other hormones
including DHEA, total testosterone, your estrogen
your cortisol, it causes them to go in the wrong direction.
And that's what leads to the symptoms of your PCOS.
These symptoms can include irregular or absent periods
acne, hair where you don't want it or hair leaving
where you do want it.
Skin discoloration, stress, depression, and more.
The reason that your doctor's not even aware
of your hyperinsulinemia is that they don't even know to
check the appropriate lab work that would diagnose it.
The two most common labs that can be used
for this are C-peptide and a fasting insulin.
And I bet if you'll pull up all
of your old lab work on your app
or from that folder where you keep all your labs,
you'll notice that these tests have never been
checked on you thus that's why your doctor doesn't know
that you're hyperinsulinemic is because he
or she hasn't checked for hyperinsulinemia.
When your insulin levels are chronically high,
most of the tissues like your muscle and your fat cells
they become what's called insulin resistant,
but there are two tissues at least
that remain insulin sensitive.
And that's your ovaries and your adrenal glands.
And that's where the hormones like DHEA, cortisol, estrogen
testosterone, progesterone,
that's where they're all modulated.
So you've got chronically high levels of insulin
in your blood and that, and I'm going to tell you what
causes that and what you can do to start to reverse it
in just a minute, but your muscles and your
your fat cells become insulin resistant.
So they they're trying to cope with this hyperinsulinemia.
Your ovaries and your adrenal glands are unable
to become insulin resistant.
So they remain insulin sensitive
even in the face of this chronic hyperinsulinemia.
So now the question is,
what's causing you to have chronically elevated levels
of insulin in your blood?
It's your diet.
There are certain foods, when you eat them
they spike your insulin very highly.
There are other foods.
When you eat them, they elevate your insulin a little bit,
maybe many would say an appropriate amount
but then it doesn't go as high.
There are other foods that barely elevate your
insulin level at all.
I've got this graphic up on the screen
so you can see this.
The thing that elevates your insulin level
the most is carbohydrates.
And the worst of all are highly refined junk foods made
of sugar and grains.
Those are what caused your insulin level to
be chronically spiked very high
and to stay high through the day.
So now, you know, the root cause
of your PCOS, hyperinsulinemia and now you also
know what causes your insulin level to be chronically high
and to be very, very high.
It is a carbohydrate overdose syndrome
that's coming from the foods that you're currently eating.
And these could even be foods that you've been
specifically told by your doctor
to eat like whole grain breads,
lots of fruit and fruit smoothies, a plant-based diet,
all of these things can spike your insulin
and keep it elevated all day long.
So now let's talk about what you're gonna
do to reverse your hyperinsulinemia
and therefore start to immediately reverse your symptoms
of PCOS.
The first step to reversing your PCOS via reversing
your hyperinsulinemia is to drastically reduce the amount
of carbohydrates you're eating
in your diet on a daily basis.
Now, the first carbohydrates that you definitely
need to get rid of are the highly processed carbohydrates
filled with sugar and ground up grains, okay?
So all the junk food, that is directly leading
to elevated insulin
which is then messing with your other hormones
which is then causing all of your PCOS symptoms.
So when you reduce and get rid of the junk food
that's going to immediately start to help and by junk food,
I mean things that are full
of sugar and ground up grains, okay?
Now, for some people, reducing their total
carbohydrate intake to less than 100 total grams a day,
over the next few months
their PCOS symptoms will go completely away.
Other people have to reduce their total carbohydrate
intake daily to under 50 grams.
And then a third category
of people have to reduce them even further down
to under 20 grams of carbohydrate a day.
Now it took years
for you to develop the symptoms of your PCOS.
So don't expect your PCOS symptoms to go away
in a day or two.
Your hyperinsulinemia will start to get better immediately
the same day you adopt a low carbohydrate diet.
But it'll take weeks
for your other hormones to get back in their proper ranges.
And then it'll take weeks or months
for the symptoms caused by those inappropriate elevation
of those hormones to start to reverse and go back to normal.
I call this therapeutic carbohydrate reduction
and that's what you should think of this of
as a therapeutic intervention.
Many people call this type of diet, a low carb diet
a ketogenic diet, a ketovore diet, or a carnivore diet.
I've got lots of videos
on this channel about just that type of diet.
And as I said earlier,
this diet, type of diet is going to start to
reverse your chronically elevated insulin level
immediately, within hours.
Your insulin level will start to return to normal.
Your body is not broken, and you are not stuck
with PCOS for the rest of your life.
You can take charge of this today
and start to improve and even
reverse your PCOS symptoms
as soon as you're finished with this video.
Talk with your doctor before you decide to stop any
of the current PCOS medications that you're taking,
but what you're going to notice as weeks go by
after you've adopted a therapeutic carbohydrate
reduction regimen in your diet and
in your life is you're not going to need those medications
after some point in this therapy.
And when that time comes, you and your doctor
can decide together to stop your medications.
If you have a friend suffering from PCOS,
it might help you and her to actually
do this therapeutic carbohydrate reduction together.
And also it'll help me to reach more people and help her
if you share this video with her,
this is Dr. Barry, I'll see you next time.