PCOS Review Newsletter #113

A free health newsletter for women with polycystic ovary syndrome or polycystic ovaries.   Issue #113      August 22, 2010

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1) Vitamin D Deficiency Epidemic Among Teens

2) Are Some PCOS Women Starved for Oxygen?

3) Brown Rice vs. White Rice

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1) Vitamin D Deficiency Epidemic Among Teens

Are you a teen or a mother of a teen daughter? If so, read this.

We've spoken many times about the importance of vitamin D in helping you to control PCOS and reduce your risk of future diseases. (That's one reason why there is so much vitamin D in our d-pinitol product). We're reported studies showing that women who have polycystic ovary syndrome are more likely to have abnormally low vitamin D levels.

Low vitamin D levels are associated with many PCOS symptoms, insulin resistance, cognitive decline, fatal stroke, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, preeclampsia, osteoporosis and shortened lifespan. We could go on but you get the idea.

Adequate vitamin D is an absolute necessity for anyone who wants to live a healthy life.

However, the research news is alarming. Vitamin D levels are too low in huge swathes of our population.

The Medical College of Georgia has just reported some disturbing news about vitamin D deficiency in teens.

Most of our vitamin D is manufactured by our bodies when our skin is exposed to the sun. Georgia is a state that gets a lot of sun. So you would think teenage girls would have plenty of vitamin D. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth.

The researchers found low vitamin D levels in 56% of the 559 male and female teens they tested. Thirty percent of white female teens had low levels. An astonishing 94% of African-American teen girls had vitamin D levels that were too low.

In other words, 94 of every 100 African-American female teenagers appear to have suboptimal vitamin D. The health of this ethnic group will become a moving train wreck if nothing is done, starting now.

If you're a teen, ask your parents to arrange for a vitamin D test.

If you're a mother of a teen, ask your doctor to test your daughter or son for vitamin D. It's the responsible thing to do. The future of your child is in your hands.

Meanwhile, put your teen daughter or son on a healthier diet and encourage them to get more exercise.

Source: Dong Y et al, Low 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in adolescents: race, season, adiposity, physical activity, and fitness, Pediatrics. 2010 Jun;125(6):1104-11

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2) Are Some PCOS Women Starved for Oxygen?

If you are overweight, your fat cells may be starved for oxygen, according to a study published by Louisiana State University. This is a condition called "adipose tissue hypoxia" or ATH.

Like all of your cells, your fat cells require oxygen in order to function. Oxygen comes from the air that you breathe in. The more fat cells you have and the bigger they are, the more oxygen you need.

The problem is that if you are weighted down by too much fat, you are less likely to be physically active and thus breathe in enough oxygen.

So what happens when your fat cells don't get enough oxygen? They go into a state of distress. Imagine how you would feel if you put a plastic bag over your head and couldn't get enough oxygen. You would feel very distressed. The same is true for your fat cells.

Hypoxic (distressed) fat cells produce substances that create inflammation in your body and throw your hormones out of balance.

For example, hypoxia may lead to an increase in the hormone leptin, which may result in a condition called "leptin resistance". Leptin resistance is intimately involved in various PCOS problems, appetite control and your fertility. (Read chapter 16.3 of The Natural Diet Solution for PCOS and Infertility to learn more about leptin resistance).

Thus adipose tissue hypoxia (ATH) worsens the symptoms that are troubling you. It's a vicious circle.

OK, so what can you do about it? Well, there are at least two things you can do.

First, you can bring in more oxygen. Sitting on the sofa or in front of a computer does not bring in much oxygen. Physical activity is what brings in oxygen. The more active you are, the more oxygen is provided to your fat cells. This is one reason why physical activity and regular exercise is so very important for getting good health results.

Second, you can reduce calories in your diet. Every calorie you consume has to be processed by your body. In order to process that calorie, oxygen is required. The more calories you consume, the more oxygen you need. So if you reduce the caloric load in your diet, you also reduce your oxygen requirements.

But please note there are good calories and bad calories. A bad calorie is one that has little or no nutrition associated with it. For example, soft drinks are all bad calories. Vegetables are all good calories. The PCOS diet ebook gives a complete explanation of low-calorie, high-nutrition diet.

Sources: Ye J, Emerging role of adipose tissue hypoxia in obesity and insulin resistance, Int J Obes (Lond). 2009 Jan;33(1):54-66

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3) Brown Rice vs. White Rice

We have many newsletter subscribers who live in Asia or other areas where white rice is a staple food. It is customary to eat rice at almost every meal.

Some women have difficulty with the diet described in "The Natural Diet Solution for PCOS and Infertility" ebook because rice is completely excluded. The reason that rice is excluded is that it can make it harder to overcome PCOS since it is high in carbs.

We understand that if white rice is an integral part of your culture, it would be next to impossible to not eat any rice at all.

In this case, we recommend that you switch over to brown rice.

The Harvard School of Public Health has estimated that replacing white rice with brown rice could reduce your risk of developing diabetes by as much as 16%. Diabetes is a common outcome of having PCOS, so this information is relevant to you.

There is substantial resistance to brown rice in cultures where white rice is prevalent. In one study of Chinese, they considered brown rice inferior to white rice in terms of taste and quality, until they tasted brown rice. However, after tasting brown rice and learning about its nutritional value, the majority indicated greater willingness to consume brown rice.

The main barriers to acceptance were the perception of rough texture and unpalatable taste, as well as higher price.

If you're eating white rice now, why not switch to brown rice and see what you think. Maybe you will get used to it. Keep in mind that brown rice is much healthier for you.

Sources: Sun Q et al, White rice, brown rice, and risk of type 2 diabetes in US men and women, Arch Intern Med. 2010 Jun 14;170(11):961-9
Zhang G et al, Substituting brown rice for white rice to lower diabetes risk: a focus-group study in Chinese adults, J Am Diet Assoc. 2010 Aug;110(8):1216-21

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Thought for Today: "The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems." -- Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi