While Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) does affect the ovaries and ovulation, it’s actually a full-body endocrine and metabolic disorder that is closely tied to insulin resistance.

What is Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) 

PCOS is one of the most common causes of female infertility, affecting approximately 10 million women worldwide. As the name suggests, the ovaries of the affected women become burdened with cysts, resulting in highly painful ovaries that grow several times their normal size.

What Causes PCOS

Insulin resistance is one of the root physiological imbalances in most, if not all, cases of PCOS. This happens when your pancreas needs to pump out more and more insulin in response to high blood sugar levels.

Insulin lowers your blood sugar by storing the glucose in cells. The cells become resistant to the constant insulin and need more to be signaled to lower the blood sugar. When this resistance goes on for a while, you have high insulin and high blood sugar. As Dr. Ben Bikman says, "At is very core, PCOS is a disease of too much insulin".  

What is Insulin?

Insulin is a hormone made by an organ in the body called the pancreas. The food you eat is broken down into simple sugar (glucose) during digestion. Glucose is absorbed into the blood after you eat. Insulin helps glucose enter the cells of the body to be used as energy. If there’s not enough insulin in the body, or if the body can’t use the insulin, sugar levels in the blood remain high. This results in the body becoming insulin resistance. 

What is Insulin Resistance

If your body becomes resistant to insulin, it means you need higher levels of insulin to keep your blood sugar under control.  Having high insulin levels regularly can cause thickening and darkening of the skin on the back of the neck, under the arms and the groin area. In young women it can cause the ovaries to make more androgen hormones (male hormones) such as testosterone. This can cause increased body hair, acne, and irregular or few periods. 

Insulin Resistance Health Risks

Having insulin resistance dramatically increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in most people. However for women with PCOS, they are at risk of developing many other serious health problems, especially if they are overweight:

• Diabetes: more than half of women with PCOS develop type 2 diabetes by age 40
• Gestational diabetes (diabetes when pregnant): which puts the pregnancy and baby at risk and can lead to type 2 diabetes later in life for both mother and child
• Heart disease: women with PCOS are at higher risk, and risk increases with age
• High blood pressure: which can damage the heart, brain, and kidneys
• High LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and low HDL (“good”) cholesterol: increasing the risk for heart disease
• Sleep apnea: a disorder that causes breathing to stop during sleep and raises the risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes
• Stroke: plaque (cholesterol and white blood cells) clogging blood vessels can lead to blood clots that in turn can cause a stroke
• Depression and anxiety: though the connection is not fully understood.

Conventional Treatments of PCOS

Conventional treatment recommendations for insulin resistance in PCOS patients is an approach taken to manage type 2 diabetes, that include weight loss, exercise and the diabetic drug metformin. There are also medicines often used like birth control, as well as to reduce acne and hair growth. 

Metformin (also known as Glucophage) helps to regulate the amount of glucose (sugar) in your blood. It makes your body more sensitive to insulin, and decreases the amount of glucose your liver releases. Young women with high insulin who take Metformin are less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who don’t take a medication that lowers insulin.

Processed foods and stress are big factors

The most common contributor to insulin resistance is a diet of refined carbohydrates and processed foods. Making healthy changes like a low carbohydrate diet can help to lose the weight and increasing physical activity can both lower your risk for type 2 diabetes, help you better manage diabetes, and prevent or delay other health problems. The truth is that diets are not sustainable. The modern food environment is designed to push every button we have.

Restoring Insulin Sensitivity with Drugs?

Does it make sense to take a birth control pill and a metformin drug to manage glucose, when of this underlying problem still exists? This is like putting a bandage on the problem. Would you rather correct the metabolic imbalance at the root using a safe natural solution?

If you have been diagnosed with PCOS, you are probably here because you are searching the the internet in an effort to understand “what supplements to take” to help manage this condition. 

The Drug Free Approach to Insulin Resistance & PCOS

The Feel Great System is simple science-based approach to health blood sugars, reversing insulin resistance or preventing it from developing. This consists of two science-based food products by Unicity International, a global science-based metabolic health company dedicated to developing innovative, science-based products and programs that promote metabolic health and improve the quality of life for people everywhere. 

Related Articles:

• 12 Ways to Improve Insulin Sensitivity and Reverse Insulin Resistance
• The University of Sydney Study: How Unicity Balance Fiber Matrix Impacts Blood Glucose and Insulin Response
• Insulin Resistance: The Common Root Cause of Chronic Diseases and How to Address It Through Lifestyle Changes