PCOS Review Newsletter #64

A free health newsletter for women with polycystic ovary syndrome or polycystic ovaries.

Issue #064      August 25, 2008 Bill Slater, Research Associate

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1) Are You Playing Genetic Russian Roulette?

2) Avoid This Hidden Threat to Your Health

3) Chili Improves Your Blood Sugar

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1) Are You Playing Genetic Russian Roulette?

This may be one of the most important articles we have ever written in this newsletter. Please take a few moments to read it.

In our PCOS diet book, we are strict about our recommendations. For example, we tell you to avoid manufactured, refined "convenience" foods, to stay away from soft drinks, etc. We ask you to consume organic, fresh produce. We ask you to eat hormone-free or free-range animal protein.

We receive complaints that our diet is too strict, too expensive, plus it's hard to find the high-quality foods that we recommend.

So why would we create such a "difficult" diet for you to follow?

We could have made it a lot easier and a lot more convenient. But we didn’t.

It's because of your "genome" and your "epigenome". Your genome is the total collection of your genes that tell your body what to do. Your epigenome is the collection of all the environmental factors that cause your genome to behave in one way or another.

If you can visualize your body as a computer, your genome is the computer's "hardware". But the hardware cannot run unless it has software.

The "software" for your genome is your epigenome.

If you have "bugs" in your software or the software is badly designed, your body's hardware will run these defective programs and produce undesirable results in your body, such as the various symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome.

You've heard the computer term "garbage in, garbage out". If you run a garbage software program on your computer, you will get a garbage result. The same is true for your body's genome. Garbage in, garbage out.

However, the terms "genome" and "epigenome" are probably quite unfamiliar to you. If you can begin to understand the significance of these terms, you will have taken a huge step toward gaining better control over your health.

So stop reading this article right now. Go to this link to watch a 6 minute presentation of what an epigenome is. The title of the presentation by Dr. Dana Dolinoy is "A Tale of Two Mice". We recommend that you watch it twice to make sure you understand it.

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genes/mice.html

This is what the presentation is telling you:

• Everything you are exposed to in your environment (including the food you eat) influences how your genome behaves.
• Your epigenome greatly influences
  • your health outcomes,
  • the health outcomes of your children, and
  • the health outcomes of your grandchildren.

What you eat and drink is a big part of your epigenome. The diet and other recommendations in our book are designed to help you improve your epigenome so that:

• Your PCOS symptoms will diminish, your risk of developing degenerative diseases will be reduced, and your overall health will improve.
• Your future children will be less likely to develop degenerative diseases.
• Your children's children will be less likely to develop degenerative diseases.

If you ignore your epigenome and live an unhealthy lifestyle and do not take steps to minimize your exposure to undesirable environmental factors, you are playing genetic Russian Roulette with yourself, your future children, and their children.

We receive dozens of inquires from distraught or concerned mothers of daughters with PCOS. An additional concern is that the daughters of PCOS daughters will develop PCOS. How can this chain be broken? One possible way to break the chain is for every future mother to improve her epigenome before she conceives. This is why the information in a book such as ours can be very important. It describes some of the things you can do to improve your epigenome.

In the next article, we'll illustrate this with an example.

Source:
Jirtle RL et al Environmental epigenomics and disease susceptibility, Nat Rev Genet. 2007 Apr;8(4):253-62

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2) Avoid This Hidden Threat to Your Health

As we said, your epigenome is the collection of environmental factors to which you are exposed. Some of those factors are in the foods you eat. Let's take canned soup as a simple example.

Why do we suggest in our diet book that you make your own soup from scratch? Wouldn't it be a lot more convenient to just buy cans of ready-made soup at the store?

By making your own soup, you help your epigenome in two ways:

• First, the level of nutrition is vastly higher when soup is made from fresh, whole ingredients. The nutrients and compounds in fresh produce and other natural ingredients provide crucial messages to your genes. These materials are part of your epigenome that help your genes do the right thing.
• Second, you avoid chemical contaminants that might be in a can of soup. These contaminants are not listed on the label. These contaminants are also part of your epigenome. But in contrast to fresh, organic foods, contaminants give your genes erroneous messages.

In other words, homemade soup is "good" software for your body's genetic computer system. Contaminants are "bad" software that scrambles up your genetic computer and make your genes do undesirable things.

Let's consider just one chemical contaminant that may be found in canned soup or any other canned product. It is called "Bisphenol A" or BPA. This is a chemical that has an estrogenic effect in your body. You'll remember in the epigenetics presentation referred to in the first article that the mice exposed to BPA had serious health problems.

Over 50% of canned goods on US market shelves are lined with a BPA-based resin. You cannot see BPA by looking at a can. BPA is also commonly found in many plastic products.

BPA is everywhere in the human environment. All people have detectable levels of BPA. Studies suggest the average levels found in the body tissues of people in the developed world are high enough to cause a wide range of adverse effects.

A new analysis by the Center for Disease Control indicates that many Americans are exposed to bisphenol A at levels above the current safety threshold set by the Environmental Protection Agency. These levels are significantly higher than what is known to cause many different negative health effects in animals exposed to BPA before birth.

So what's so bad about BPA? Plenty! Here are just a few problems BPA can create for women with PCOS:

• BPA may increase insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is a primary cause of polycystic ovary syndrome and infertility.
• It's linked to recurrent miscarriage, which is a big problem for women with PCOS.
• BPA causes breast cancer in lab animals.
• BPA produces fibroids and polycystic ovaries in lab animals.
• It makes you fatter because it suppresses a fat-controlling hormone called adiponectin. BPA increases your risk of developing metabolic syndrome, which is closely related to polycystic ovarian syndrome.
• Both overweight and lean women with polycystic ovary syndrome have higher levels of BPA than non-PCOS lean women.
• In women with ovarian dysfunction, there is an association between BPA and male hormone levels.
• Exposure to BPA during pregnancy disturbs early egg development in the unborn female fetuses of lab animals. When these fetuses reach adulthood, the disturbances are translated into an increase in genetically abnormal eggs and embryos. This effect is possible because female mammals, including mice and humans, form their eggs while still in their mother's womb. Thus, when a "grandmother" mouse is exposed to BPA, not only are her direct progeny exposed, but also the eggs that will become her grandchildren.

Are you starting to get the picture? Bisphenol A is a very bad thing to have as part of your epigenome.

It makes obvious sense to remove any risk of BPA coming from your diet. This is exactly why we have you go to the trouble of making your own soup and not buy canned soup.

And bear in mind that BPA is only one of more than 70,000 chemicals found in our environment. The FDA or Environmental Protection Agency is not going to protect you from all these chemicals. In fact, they have almost no idea how many of these chemicals are in your body or what effect they are having.

The pharmaceutical companies, chemical companies and food industry are not particularly concerned about your health. They are more concerned about making money.

So who is going to protect you? No one except yourself!

This is the reason why you should consider consuming the healthier foods recommended in our PCOS diet book. You need to protect yourself with a healthier diet.

There's no question that a higher quality diet will improve your epigenome. An improved epigenome will give you a better health outcome.

Sources:
Calafat, AM et al, Exposure of the US population to bisphenol A and 4-tertiary-octylphenol: 2003-2004, Environ Health Perspect. 2008 Jan;116(1):39-44
Alonso-Magdalena P et al, The Estrogenic Effect of Bisphenol-A Disrupts the Pancreatic ß-Cell Function in vivo and Induces Insulin Resistance, Environ Health Perspect. 2006 Jan;114(1):106-12
Sugiura-Ogasawara, M et al, Exposure to bisphenol A is associated with recurrent miscarriage, Hum Reprod. 2005 Aug;20(8):2325-9
Murray, TJ et al, Induction of mammary gland ductal hyperplasias and carcinoma in situ following fetal bisphenol A exposure, Reprod Toxicol. 2007 Apr-May;23(3):383-90
Susiarjo, M et al, A Exposure In Utero Disrupts Early Oogenesis in the Mouse, PLoS Genet. 2007 Jan 12;3(1):e5
Newbold, RR et al, Long-term Adverse Effects of Neonatal Exposure to Bisphenol A on the Murine Female Reproductive Tract, Reprod Toxicol. 2007 Aug-Sep;24(2):253-8
Hugo, ER et al, Bisphenol A at Environmentally Relevant Doses Inhibits Adiponectin Release from Human Adipose Tissue Explants and Adipocytes, Environmental Health Perspectives, in press, 2008
Takeuchi T et al, Positive relationship between androgen and the endocrine disruptor, bisphenol A, in normal women and women with ovarian dysfunction, Endocr J. 2004 Apr;51(2):165-9

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3) Chili Improves Your Blood Sugar

Women with PCOS commonly have an exaggerated, excessive insulin response to starches and sugars consumed during a meal.

We uncovered some research from the University of Tasmania in Australia showing that consumption of chili powder with a meal reduced the amount of insulin required to handle the increase of blood sugar with a meal. For this reason, chili should be beneficial in controlling PCOS-related insulin problems.

The chili was especially beneficial for those who were overweight.

Why not spice up your meals with some occasional chili?

Source:
Ahuja KD et al Effects of chili consumption on postprandial glucose, insulin, and energy metabolism, Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 Jul;84(1):63-9

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Thought for Today: "The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." -- J. Robert Oppenheimer