My PCOS Cysters, Listen to Your Gut!

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN GUT HEALTH AND COMMON PCOS SYMPTOMS

By Belinda McCall, Founder of WomanBeeWell

PSA: If you’re not actively supporting your gut health, you’re missing a key to not just minimizing your PCOS symptoms, but also increasing your quality of life. You can take my word for it right here, or you can read on if you need some convincing.

PCOS Beyond Infertility

Most of us think that PCOS is just a problem because it’s the number one cause of infertility among women. While that certainly is an issue, it is not the only effect of PCOS on the body. It is an endocrine, metabolic, and chronic inflammatory syndrome that affects the entire body, not just the reproductive system.

Other symptoms and risks associated with PCOS include:

• Increased risk for type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, obesity, and heart disease

• Increased risk for endometrial cancer

• Chronic fatigue and mood changes like anxiety and depression

• Irregular periods and abnormally heavy and painful periods

• Excess androgens that can result in excess facial and body hair growth, male pattern baldness, or acne

These symptoms can have just as great, if not more, of an impact on everyday life as infertility does. Fortunately, by taking a deeper and holistic look at how your body functions, you can find relief.

How do I know this? Personally. Intimately. I have PCOS and suffered from many of these symptoms for years. But now, I forget that I even have PCOS on most days! This is without a doubt because of the adjustments I’ve made in my daily life and, of course, addressing my gut health is one of those adjustments.

GUT HEALTH IS NOT A FAD

Gut health may seem like a new hot topic these days, but the truth is that the connection between gut health and overall health has long been known. It just seems to go in and out of style like bell bottoms and skinny eyebrows.

Hippocrates said it best, “All disease begins in the gut.” But I guess it’s just taken a while for science to catch up with what humans have instinctively known for years. Thank goodness we’re finally catching on!

It is becoming more evident now that a healthy gut is essential to overall health

Signs of a healthy gut (in people with or without PCOS) include regularity, an abundance of energy, mental clarity, and healthy skin.

What you might not realize is that gut health can also affect your mental and behavioral health, from making stress and anxiety worse, to leading to brain fog, poor memory, lack of focus, and concentration.

All of these are important for anyone, but are you starting to see some similarities here between gut health and PCOS symptoms?

The Connection Between Gut Health and PCOS Symptoms

There are several studies that show how your gut health can affect the development of PCOS symptoms by influencing energy absorption, metabolic pathways, intestinal permeability, and the gut-brain axis. Let’s relate each of these impacts of gut health to common symptoms of PCOS.

• Energy absorption: can affect symptoms of chronic fatigue

• Metabolic pathways: can affect insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes risk, hormones like androgens (typically higher in women with PCOS) and obesity that could lead to heart disease

• Intestinal permeability: can affect symptoms of chronic inflammation that are system-wide

• Gut-brain axis: can affect symptoms of anxiety and depression

It’s amazing how that all works out. So if you weren’t convinced from the beginning, now you should see exactly how your gut health can affect symptoms of PCOS.

How To Support Your Gut Health

There are many wonderful ways tosupport your gut health, but agreat place to start is byincorporating more prebiotic andprobiotic foods into your dailyintake. Here’s a quick list for you toadd to your next grocery run:

My Top 5 Prebiotic Foods: Apples, Asparagus, Flaxseeds, Garlic, Oats

My Top 3 Probiotic Foods: Kombucha, Sauerkraut, Yogurt

Get The Golden Gut!

Gut health clearly isn’t just about probiotics and poop… it’s about so much more and requires a multi-faceted approach to get it back into a good groove. To learn more about how you can holistically support your gut health to help minimize PCOS symptoms, check out our mini-course “The 5-DayGolden Gut” below.

Follow your gut, my fellow cysters!

If you’re not actively supporting your gut health, you’re missing a key to not just minimizing your PCOS symptoms, but also increasing your quality of life.

https://womanbeewell.com/PCOSGut

Belinda McCall is a Certified Holistic Nutritionist and the founder of WomanBeeWell. Think of her as your judgment-free, inspired, geeky gut-health and all-around wellness BFF. She is the creator of online courses that quickly empower women with the knowledge and tools needed to restore balance back to the gut and to the entire mind, body, and soul. The WomanBeeWell mantra: "Wellness Looks Different for Every Woman"