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There are plenty of non-invasive, natural treatments you can investigate to help treat the underlying causes and effects of PCOS, as well as mitigate a lot of the unpleasant symptoms. Take your time and have a good read through the following options:
- Aloe Vera
- Alpha Lipoic Acid
- American Ginseng
- Apple Cider Vinegar
- Bilberry
- Biotin
- Carnitine
- Castor Oil Heat Packs
- Chlorogenic Acid
- Chromium
- Cinnamon
- Co-enzyme Q10
- D-Chiro Inositol/Pinitol
- Diindolylmethane (DIM)
- Dong quai
- Evening Primrose Oil
- Exercise
- Fenugreek
- Fiber
- Fucoxanthin
- Green Tea
- Gymnema Sylvestre
- Magnesium
- Manganese
- Melatonin
- Myoinositol
- N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC)
- Omega 3 Fatty Acids
- Probiotics
- Saw Palmetto
- Selenium
- Stevia
- Turmeric
- Vanadium
- Vitamin B
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin E
- Vitex Agnus Castus
- Zinc
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I just wanted to thank you for all of this information. I came across the soulcysters blog while trying to find a natural product to use to try to get pregnant and through there was told to check this site out. I have gone thru IVF in the past to get pregnant but would prefer to get pregnant more naturally. Currently I am on DCI 1200 mg daily (about 2 weeks now) and am going to start Myo-I also. In your research have you come across why DCI works for some woman with PCOS but not others. I was just wondering because I never ovulated when I was on Clomid and other fertility drugs so I am patiently waiting to see if I will taking the DCI. Any advice you could give about the best supplements or combination of to get pregnant would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
Tara,
Thank you for your comment, I am really glad that you have found the information useful.
Whilst the science behind how DCI works is compelling and provides us with great insight into the mechanism of insulin resistance and PCOS, it is not a magic bullet. Every human being is unique in their physiology thus no two people will ever suffer from the same disease in exactly the same way. On top of physiological idiosyncrasies we have the influence that our lifestyle choices make on our health.
With insulin resistance (IR) and polycystic ovarian syndrome as well as other related issues such as Syndrome X, Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes Mellitus etc, the effects of exercise are particularly important. When we exercise we increase our cellular receptivity to insulin, allowing us to utilise the carbohydrates from our food with much lower insulin levels. This is of vital importance in managing IR. The other very important tool in managing IR is to keep both the glycaemic load (total amount of carbohydrates you consume) and the glycaemic index of foods (how quickly the carbohydrates in the food are absorbed into your blood stream) low. Everybody is different and the amount of carbohydrates that you can safely consume will differ depending upon how much exercise you do, your weight, the degree to which you are insulin resistant and many other factors, however as a basic guideline it would be safe to say that eating in excess of 150 grams of carbohydrate per day will not be beneficial. Some women with PCOS restrict this amount down as low as 20 grams per day, though for many this will be too extreme. Others if they are very very fit and lead a very active lifestyle can consume as much as 250 grams – but these will all be from very low GI sources such as vegetables, fruits and whole grains.
A general rule for everybody whether they have insulin resistance or not is to eat as much fresh, unprocessed food as possible – fresh, live foods that look exactly the same as when they were picked. The less processed food we eat, the healthier we will be, and this goes for every single person on earth. As an added bonus, the less processing and packaging that has gone into our food, the lower the carbon footprint will be and the less impact it will have on the earth.
The research done to date on both DCI and PCOS indicates that if you:
*Limit your carbohydrate intake
*Increase your fibre intake
*Regularly engage in exercise
*Drink plenty of water
*Take an appropriate amount of DCI
*Ensure that your Vitamin D levels are adequate
Then you will have the best chance of improving your health and fertility.
Best of luck!
Anne
Tara, I have just come across another study by Dr Nestler, published in 2008 in Metabolism Clinical and Experimental 57 (2008) 1390–1397 which postulates that there may be multiple defects in DCI-phosphoglycan metabolism resulting in the same thing – Insulin Resistance. The study found that in this particular cohort of women, when they were supplemented with 3000 mg of DCI per day it did not have the expected (and previously found in other studies) result of increasing the release of DCI-IPG the active form within the body tissues. They hypothesize that if one is deficient in DCI then supplementation will address that and resolve the insulin resistance, however if one is not deficient in DCI, but has a defect in DCI-IPG metabolism then mere supplementation will not address the underlying problem. I hope this information is useful to you and answers your question. Best of luck.
Hi Anne,
How does one know that she has a deficiency in DCI-IPG? And how do you correct this disorder?
I bought DCI supplements from Chiral Balance last week and have been on it since. I’m starting to feel more energetic. Have not menstruated for 12 months now.
The only way to definitively determine whether you are functionally deficient in DCI-IPG is to do a muscle biopsy. I don’t believe that this is performed clinically at present, as it’s a reasonably invasive test, but there have been a couple of studies which have performed muscle biopsies from live patients and obtained samples during autopsies of Type II diabetics as part of their investigation into the role of DCI-IPG in insulin resistance.
From a study published in 2008 in the Journal Metabolism Clinical and Experimental by Cheang et al:
Significantly decreased muscle DCI-IPG bioactivity and decreased total DCI content have been noted in needle biopsies [13] and autopsy specimens [14] from subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus compared with controls. In addition, DCI-IPG (or P-type IPG) has been shown to be decreased in human term placentas in preeclamptic individuals, who also concomitantly exhibit decreased insulin signaling, when compared with healthy women [28].
The other studies referred to in the paper are:
[13] Kennington AS, Hill CR, Craig J, et al. Low urinary chiro-inositol excretion in non–insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. N Engl J Med 1990;323:373-8.
[14] Asplin I, Galasko G, Larner J. Chiro-inositol deficiency and insulin resistance: a comparison of the chiro-inositol- and the myo-inositol–containing insulin mediators isolated from urine, hemodialysate, and muscle of control and type II diabetic subjects. Proc Natl Acad Sci
[28] Scioscia M, Gumaa K, Kunjara S, et al. Insulin resistance in human preeclamptic placenta is mediated by serine phosphorylation of insulin receptor substrate-1 and -2. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2006;91:709-17. U S A 1993;90:5924-8.
I hope this answers your question.
Clinical signs such as better energy levels, reduced appetite (or even increased appetite) are a good indicator that you do have a degree of DCI deficiency, either through a lack of dietary myoinositol or an inability to convert myoinositol into DCI. Hopefully as your treatment progresses you will resume menstruating. Some women have found that their menstrual cycle either shortens, or if it has been absent, returns within their first 2-4 weeks of treatment with DCI, even if it’s been absent for years.
There is no known way to correct the disorder, in fact, the disorder itself is still being isolated. It appears that some women (especially those from the studies performed in South America) have a deficiency of DCI that is corrected by dietary supplementation with d chiro inositol. A more recent study, in fact the one I quoted from above, resulted in findings that indicate that there is another mechanism of action in IR which may involve a functional deficiency in DCI-IPG which is NOT corrected by dietary supplementation. It’s hard to say, as the study was cut short at only 6 weeks due to them running out of DCI and they did not test levels of testosterone, cholesterol, triglycerides etc – the things that have been found to consistently improve in prior studies.
Insulin resistance, which is really the root of the problem when it comes to PCOS, is a complex problem and there are many things that you can do to improve it. Please check out http://www.pcosinfo.wordpress.com/treatments/natural and http://pcosinfo.wordpress.com/news-research for some ideas or feel free to write back with any more questions you may have.
Well this is rather a long-winded and technical response but it is a complex issue. I hope it’s been helpful to you.
All the best,
Anne
How much and when should I take myoinositol and DCI? Also can I take them in the one go (together)
Hi Sophia,
It is fine to take both myo-inositol and d-chiro inositol together. Studies into myo-inositol and PCOS have used 4 grams per day, which is best taken 2 g in the morning, half an hour before breakfast and 2 g in the evening half an hour before dinner.
The recommended dose for d-chiro inositol is 20 mg per kilogram of bodyweight. For instance, for a woman weighing 60 kg or 132 lb, the daily dose would be 1200 mg. If a woman weighed twice as much, the dose would be twice as much. This is also best split into a morning and evening dose.
If you want any help calculating a dose for a specific bodyweight, please let me know. I’m here to help.