How to Reverse PCOS w/ OBGYN & Author: Dr. Felice Gersh!

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Now, hold it for 60 seconds. Head over to pure spectrum cbd.com and use the code, the sisterhood one word for 10% Of can I stop now? Nope. You got 30 more seconds. Dr. SIDS. my own hands. And Three, two, one action. Welcome everybody to another episode of a sister and her Mister today, we have one of my gynecologist,

Dr. Phyllis Gersh. She is a multi award winning physician with dual board certification in OB GYN and integrative medicine. She is the founder and the director of the integrative medical group in Irvine, where women can be treated in a comprehensive way by combining conventional naturopathic and holistic medicine. She’s also the best-selling author of PCO. S S O S. Thank you so much for joining us.

Oh, it’s absolutely my pleasure. I just enjoy so much chatting with you guys. We were talking about before the podcast started just a week ago, we went camping and we took your book to read up about PCs. And it’s one of my favorites, because I love how you talk about in the beginning about your experience and then your daughter’s experience and how you helped her.

And it’s, it’s a really good read. That’s amazing. Well, thank you. And there’s nothing that sort of rings more true than when it really hits you and your family members. And I know that it’s such an epidemic now with PCUSA worldwide, that almost everyone has someone they care about who is dealing with this problem today. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And you had mentioned in your book that you have PCOS yourself, but you’re managing it very effectively. Obviously. Yes. I had to make my own diagnosis way back, way back when I was in medical school, I actually knew that it was clearly a problem because I hadn’t had a period for two years and I also had a lot of acne and I just didn’t know really what to do about it because I’d been to many dermatologists and nobody was really helping me.

And, you know, it was so frustrating. And then I went to see one of the really big, hot shot doctors at my medical school and the OB GYN department who just really was very flippant and just said, like, what do you care? Women don’t even like their periods anyway, just go on birth control pills and, you know, like have a nice day there’s the door basically.

And it was like, but there’s something wrong with me. And that was just not an interest. And actually, you know, fast forward to today and for many patients they’re getting the same treatment. Yes. And the only difference is nobody told me what was wrong with me in terms of just giving me a label. Of course, nobody would say anything.

Why is this happening anyway, that doesn’t really come up today either, but you just get a label, but getting a label has only value if it serves a purpose for actually doing something with that information. And nowadays it’s back to the same thing. It’s the only thing they’ve added in is like maybe spironalactone and maybe Metformin, you know, for, you know,

they have some benefits and they also have some drawbacks, but neither of them, none of these medications of course get to the underlying issues, which I was so desperately wanting. And then it took me many decades before I actually came to understand PCO. And of course we’re still learning more about it all the time. Oh, absolutely. There’s so much research that still needs to be done in your book.

You actually talk about how old PCLs is. You talk about how it’s almost 50,000 years old. You know, it’s been around for a long time and you talk about in its mild form, it can actually be a gift. So I was wondering if you would tell us more about the origins of PCLs and how we can apply it to our lives as a gift.

Well, I always like to think that genetics are attendancy, they’re not a destiny. And so when you go back and you look at some of the G D the genetics that are involved with PCLs, it turns out that way back when, you know, when women were living in a tribal society and they ate natural foods, cause that’s all that was available.

They had built into their bodies, a little bit of a deficiency in their ability to convert testosterone into estradiol, the ovarian produce type of estrogen. And there’s an enzyme that does that. It’s called aromatase and all estrogen comes from testosterone in the ovary. And a lot of people don’t realize it well, it turned out because there was this little, mild deficiency.

There would be a little excessive amount of testosterone and a little tiny bit of deficiency of estrogen, but very, very mild, not enough to give any visible, you know, like facial hair or acne or anything like that, just enough to maybe slightly reduce fertility, which actually was a benefit because nobody had built in birth control of any sort. And the more babies you had,

the more challenges you had to your health and even to your mortality, because people, of course, women died in childbirth and of course, babies and newborns, when they’re nursing, they take whatever they need from the moms. So women could get very seriously iron deficient, nutrient deficient, and, you know, if they had one baby after another, that’s a real challenge.

And each child would have less chance of survival. So maybe instead of having like eight or nine kids, you had four or five, that’s actually a plus. And for everyone involved. And in addition, because of that little bit of extra testosterone, those were the women who were like the leaders of their tribe. They had a little bit more maybe outgoing outgoingness.

They were a little bit braver, stronger, bolder. And we now know that when they’ve tested women who are gold metal Olympians, that when they have the mild form of PCs, they actually make up a high number of the winners with the gold medals. So it made them more competitive. So I like to think that this was like a built-in little advantage that you had a few fewer children,

but you were still fertile. You were a little bit more dominant, a little bit braver, bolder, and you know, you ended up being the leaders. So we’ll go back to your origins. If we could just turn the clock back and we eat the right foods, we live the right lifestyle. We can actually harness those inner powers of those early prehistoric women who you are descended from,

right? Because these are the same genes that you Harbor and you too can become like the equivalent of an Olympic gold medal winner. And you can do that. We just have to work a little bit harder than the average woman to get to that optimal state of health. Yeah. What a beautiful response outlook, Inspirational. So inspirational. Cause it’s like a,

it’s like a gift or an advantage. And just something that like you have to control at once you do, like, you can really use it, your advantage to become a leader in like anything. Speaking Of circadian rhythms, please. I love when you talk about this in your book, tell us more about how circadian rhythms affect our hormones. What we can do in our day to day lives to get ourselves back with the beat and living with on beat.

Basically, I think you mentioned that in Your book, I’d say like living to the beat, we’ve got to get back with that and we’ve had to get, you know, kind of, you know, the, and this has been analogy has been used in a number of different cases. If you think of the master clock that sits in the brain in the hypothalamus top of the optic nerve,

the optic nerve is the one that goes to the eye and of course is involved in vision. And there are special receptors in the retina of the eye that can detect light. And it feeds through the special, the neural connection into this area of the brain called the medic nucleus. It’s a group of neurons in this area that we now call the master clock.

And it can sense when it’s light. And so it can keep track of a bunch of things and it helps to set the beat. So think of it like the conductor of all the organs in your body. And it puts out signals so that everything works with beautiful synchrony. And, but a lot of people don’t know this, like everything in the body has to be working together.

You know, it would be like the orchestra. If you had the strings, you know, they’re like the piano is playing one thing, and then the violins are playing at a different measure. And then the trombones are off just two notes. You know, after a while it’s not beautiful music, it’s nothing but noise. And that’s what happens in the body.

We would call that sort of metabolic chaos, but we want metabolic homeostasis. We want everything to be working in this calm unison. And that’s what the master clock helps. Well, it turns out that estrogen, the form that the ovaries make extra dial is actually present in terms of receptor function on these groups of neurons. And so if you don’t have the right estrogen production in the right type of rhythm,

it’s not just having it. It’s like everything it’s having the right amount and also having it at the right time and with the right proportions, the right rhythms. If you don’t have that, then your master clock becomes a little bit, we’ll say, you know, wacky, you know, basically it will become off the beat so that you’re not really working properly,

all the, all of your organs together. And so every morning when you wake up, you need to have bright light. And because the master clock actually needs that, otherwise the word that’s used, it’s drifting. It just kind of drifts off the beat, like one or two notes. And it needs that bright light to help get back on the beat.

That’s why there are people who have types of blindness, for example, where they see not even light, they can’t see any light and they have tremendous problems, emotionally metabolically. And that’s a big, big deal because you need that bright light. That’s why living in a dark cable the time or where you don’t have the proper types of light and the,

the types of rays of the sun to actually set this master clock every morning. You also, even without S you’ll have this problem of circadian dysfunction, well, women with PCs because they don’t make the right amount of estrogen. They actually start having a little bit of alteration of the function of their Masterclock. Well, where do we know about this? We know about a lot of problems with people who suffer from jet lag.

So jet lag can be because you’re always flying across different time zones. It can also be what we call social jet lag, where you may stay up some nights till three o’clock in the morning. Another day you stay up till midnight. You know, you go to bed at all different times, you eat at all different times, that’s social jet lag,

but whether it’s social jet lag or you work a night shift, for example, like, like me, I worked doing so much work at night, delivering babies at night all the time for 25 years. And there are a lot of other people in the police department, fire department, of course, in hospitals that have to work at night. Something like 25% of the population works during some of the night hours.

And they don’t do it like every single day. So it’s varied from day to day. Sometimes you work at night, sometimes you have days off and so on. And so they will have a jet lag situation. Well, what do we know about people who have jet lag? They have a lot of problems. They have more diabetes, obesity, depression,

anxiety, irregular cycles, weight gain, you know, every kind of mood disorder, anxiety, depression, everything, and sleep problems, poor sleep quality, their insulin levels stay high. A lot of the same things that happen to women with PCLs when you look at it. And it’s really amazing. And it’s, bi-directional in terms of like, when you have jet lag,

you’re going to have much more problems with your periods. You gonna have a lot of irregular cycles, but then also if you have irregular cycles and you don’t make estrogen properly, you’re going to then have problems back with your master clock. So it’s bi-directional, so it’s kind of like spiraling down the, you know, the more time that goes by that you’re in this kind of a state.

So women with PCLs are living essentially a life of jet lag with all those problems that are associated with jet lag. So it’s no wonder that if you look at their issues, they have so many issues with mood disorders, anxiety, depression, sleep, quality problems, weight gain, you know, irritable, bowel, diabetes, insulin resistance, weight, gain,

all of the problems that women with PCLs have actually are the same kinds of problems that people have with jet lag only, maybe more severe, because they have these other problems that we’ll discuss relating to their gut dysbiosis and relating to other issues that correlate with having problems with their ovarian function, making the estrogen. And then of course they are associated on almost every case.

And this has been controversial depending on the organization, whether it’s mandatory for women, with PCs to have androgen excess or not. I always believe it really does. If you have something that’s PCs and they don’t have any manifestations or lab testing that shows elevated androgens, like testosterone, DHA, sulfate, the androgens that are like male type hormones, you do have a problem,

but it should be called something else. But the committee says it’s a different type of PCLs, but oh, interesting. Yeah, but I don’t, you know, they didn’t ask my opinion. That should be something else, but because they just don’t have, because they’re really a very key part for the vast majority of women with PCOS is androgen excess in the form.

Typically the most common, like 85 to 90% would be testosterone. And so once you have high testosterone that in turn creates a number of additional problems. So it’s like women with PCLs have all the problems of women living with real jet lag from working at night or crossing time zones. And then they have all these added problems on top of that. So it’s like jet lag plus type.

So w when it comes to the circadian rhythm, obviously it’s very essential to manage that. What would be, do you have any go-to tips or like just some, some like top five things you could say to the sisters listening that they could help improve their circadian rhythm? Absolutely. They like, for example, there was one study. Now, one of the hormones,

everything in the body is circadian, but some are more dramatically. So, so one of the hormones that a lot of people knew do know about that is circadian is the hormone from the adrenal gland called cortisol and cortisol should have really high production in the morning. And it helps like make you alert. It also makes you hungry. It, it gives you some insulin resistance so that it will raise your blood sugar.

Because, you know, at that point you haven’t eaten and yet you need to do something, right. You were awake. You need to get going. So cortisol should be really high in the morning, but at night it should really be dropping, be really low. And on the flip side, you have melatonin, which is sort of like the opposite.

So melatonin should really be shut down in the morning and night. It should be rising. So you have this beautiful, like, you know, yin yang between the cortisol and the melatonin. So when people live a life of jet lag, like when mood PCLs, they tend to be tired in the morning. Their melatonin is probably higher than it should be.

And so they feel still groggy. Like they just took a big dose of melatonin. They’re kind of groggy in the morning. They need a lot of coffee and so on. And then at night when they should be getting sleepy and their melatonin should be going up the melatonin isn’t, but their cortisol is actually spiking. And they have studies to show that.

And so they’re alert, they’re feeling energized and guess what? They’re feeling hungry. And that’s why they get like the night munchies. It’s like, gee, I want to go eat food. And it’s like 10 o’clock at night. So it’s like, they say, I’m a night owl. Well, of course, then they eat at night and that’s what happens in the morning or should happen when you have a dramatic increase in terms of your cortisol,

it should make you hungry. And let me get something here. And so what can we do? Well, we can take some supplemental melatonin at night to help promote sleep, but just a little bit to start, I’d like to start very little. And if you take about two hours before bedtime, if you take about half a milligram, it’s not enough to make,

you want to go to sleep. It’s a two hours before you going to sleep and you can even experiment a little earlier. It just sort of helps to drive down the cortisol to just try to get it to go down and to sort of get your body in the mood. Like just alert your, all the organs of your body sleep should be coming.

And then right at bedtime, if you need more, just try one milligram, like about a half an hour before bed, to just help you ease into sleep, not wallop you with a gigantic dose of melatonin, just to help you ease into sleep. The other thing is using light therapy in the morning. So when you wake up, what you want is that bright light to really shut down.

When you have the bright light, it will help to shut down the melatonin and cause your cortisol to come up. So you want to get, if you can’t go out in the sun and especially in the winter, there is no bright sun. Sometimes when we wake up and even when we do live in a time of year, when there’s bright sun,

we may be busy in the house. We can’t just get outside and be sitting out in the sun so you can buy a light box and what you would do. They they’re all over the place, easy to get, not expensive. And you put it at the setting for 10,000 Lux. That’s L U X, Z 10,000 Lux. And then you just put it near you.

And then that bright light for 30 minutes every morning. And then if you can do it for another 30 minutes in the middle of the day, that will really help to set the goal that bright light will go in. It will hit the receptors, go to the master clock and help to keep it from drifting, help it to get reset. So that light therapy,

by the way, has been used for seasonal affective disorder for ages. So seasonal affective disorder is depression that often sets in and people who live at the Northern most or the, you know, the Southern most, depending on the time of year, when they have like night that lasts for like 20 hours a day, right where it says, and of course in the summer,

then it’s the opposite. They never really get dark. They just get a little dusky and that is bright light again, but in the winter it’s horrendous. It’s like, there’s almost no sun. It’s like dark, dark, dark, and then a little dusky and a little bit of light and not much. So have a lot of depression. So using light therapy can be really helpful.

It’s also been shown that it can help with women who have like premenstrual syndrome. It can even help with people have other different types of psychiatric illness when they use it, you know, under psychiatric care. So, but for women with PCs, it can be a lifesaver. Really. It’s amazing. I’ve seen such a difference now at night, it’s really important to be in a very dark room because there’s data to show that even a little bit of light filtering in through your eyelids will actually slow the production and drop the production of melatonin,

which you desperately need. The more I learn about melatonin, the more I’m in awe of melatonin. Melatonin is about way more than just helping you sleep. It’s about glucose regulation. That’s one of the reasons why people don’t get enough sleep at night are more prone to diabetes. It’s one of the most potent antioxidants of the body. So it reduces inflammation.

It’s amazing. You know, melatonin is absolutely amazing and you don’t make it. If you don’t get a dark room and you get sleep because melatonin is just not going to be made in any substantial amount. If you’re wide awake in the middle of the night, it’s not going to happen. So I sleep for example, with a sleep mask, because I cannot get my room to be pitch black.

And, you know, I don’t really feel like putting like the completely dark blinds on my, on my windows because when I get up in the morning, I like there to be some light. So you have to there’s these trade-offs. So what I do is I found, and I’ve tried a bunch of different types of sleep mess that I find is perfectly comfortable.

I don’t have any problem sleeping with it. In fact, it makes me feel kind of cozy. Now I’m so used to it, you know? So I’ll use the masks now. Yeah, that’s right now, you can’t see everything’s covered right then at night. So, but I feel very comfortable with it and they’re, they come in different styles and such.

And what I do is I wake up in the morning, I wake up naturally and then I just take it off and I leave my eyes closed and let the natural room light filter through my, my eyelids. And then I just, you know, after a little while, you know, I just get up and, you know, even if on occasion,

if I don’t wake up, I always set my alarm to be just a little bit earlier than I really needed to be. And then what I will do is just turn, you know, I can just feel it. And I just turn off the alarm and I still keep my sleep mask on to let the natural light filter through, because that works better.

It’s kind of like a Dawn simulator through your, by which people come by, by the way, if you have a really pitch-black room, you can get a Dawn simulator that will have like the, the sun rising kind of thing. And then the light comes up because that’s natural. The more we get back to our origins about how we evolved as far as sleep and light,

the much better health will attain. So for women with PCLs, they really need to work at this. So, and then the other thing you have to be rigid in terms of your schedule. You just can’t like be doing the social jet lag and like staying up different odd hours in the night on the weekends. You can’t do that. It’s not good for you.

So you need to go to bed preferably around 10:00 PM, but no later than 11, because our melatonin typically peaks around two in the morning. That also is the time when our cortisol is really plummeted and our brain flow of blood is maximized. So we have this incredible flow of blood to the brain, which we know is key for everything that the brain does in terms of brain health.

And that isn’t going to happen. If you go to bed at the wrong time, sleep phases are critically important. And women with peace who have high rates of sleep, disordered breathing. So for many of my patients with PCOS, I will order a home sleep study, which are covered by insurance. All the insurances cover them. And they’re so easy now because they’re done at home.

So you don’t have to go to the fancy, you know, centers where, you know, the, why are you all up and everything else sometimes that has to happen afterwards, if, depending on what’s found, but the vast majority, you don’t have to do that anymore. You get a home sleep study, which is easy. And so it’s very simple for me to order that.

And it’s really important because if you have untreated sleep, disordered breathing, and they come in at different types, then it’s really hard to lose weight. You just don’t feel well. And you just can’t really get a good night’s sleep. And it’s sort of, it’s not that you have to be treated forever. It’s one of those funny deals. If you don’t sleep well,

you can’t heal. And if you can’t heal, then you can’t sleep well. But if you can sleep well by having treatment for your sleep disordered breathing, then you can heal. Then you can get rid of the sleep treatment. So it’s not, I don’t, I like to think of a lot of the conventional medical treatments as a bridge to health,

as opposed to you’re stuck for life. You know, even pharmaceutical. Sometimes I do have to prescribe pharmaceuticals. There are some women with PCs who could be 150 pounds overweight, and you know what their appetite dysregulation is so severe and their moods are so off. And so much of their body is so metabolically, dysregulated. It’s really hard for them to work on willpower.

You know, if I tell them what to do, like, we’ll talk about like, when you should eat what you should eat, like they just can’t do it because their brain is not really serving their needs at this point. So sometimes pharmaceuticals can help and you, but you only use them for maybe a few months and you can help someone to get back on track and then you can take them away kind of like training wheels.

So, you know, that’s why, you know, like in my books, everything, that’s all about self-help. But you know, I want people to know that if you can’t do it, which like say 90% of people are successful just with lifestyle, it’s still these 10%. So. And so if you need some other interventions, if you need a sleep study,

if you need to be on pharmaceuticals for awhile, it’s not a failure, you just do it. But you realize that there’s an exit strategy as you probably well know, most times when people are put on these drugs, there really isn’t an exit strategy. Meaning at a certain point you could take the drugs away and you’ll actually be, well, we know that that isn’t the strategy.

There is no strategy. You just go on the drugs and you know, maybe by the time you want to get off, you’ll have a different doctor. Maybe that’s, you know, it’s like, it won’t be my problem. When you get off the birth control pills and all these drugs, and you want to get pregnant. And like, you’re a complete disaster,

which is what often happens when you take these drugs away and you have had no underlying health strategy, you know, you’ve done nothing. And then you just take the drugs away. It’s like a disaster, but that’s not our strategy. So I just like people to know that if you’re in that category, that you need extra help, that’s okay. You know,

that’s okay. We just do what we have to do. And then get you back on track. If you kind of fell off the track a little bit and you need more help, but just doing a lot of the lifestyle, things, like I said, for 90% of people, they can tremendously overcome all of their PCLs problems. It’s, it’s amazing.

I’ve had people lose 60 pounds in maybe. I mean, I’m always realistic. Like maybe they took a year and a half. I’m not saying three months. That’s ridiculous. You know, but maybe, and, but they keep it off because they have metabolically modified themselves. They haven’t just done starvation diets. And then of course they always regain it.

It’s like, when are people going to learn that, that doesn’t work? You know, that’s like, it doesn’t work. You may lose weight, but you’re also going to lose lean body mass. And you’re not doing anything to fix any of the underlying real issues. So, but circadian rhythm, you have to, you cannot be, well, if you don’t get sleep,

so you have to go to bed and you know, that’s why we gave you some help. And then if some people need extra help, they may need some other herbals, like, they might need ashwagandha. There’s, you know, a whole slew of different relaxation, herbals, passionflower, lemon, balm, and CBD. And it’s interesting, like there is very little research on CBD and women with PCLs,

but they, the whole, and we could talk about that, like another time, or we could talk about it. And I didn’t actually talk about the endocannabinoid system at all in my, in my book, but it’s coming really into the forefront. It was really no research on it. So I didn’t like, you know, I don’t want to,

you know, as you know, from reading the book, it has hundreds of references. So without any research, it’s hard to talk about something altogether, but there’s been a little bit now just a little bit, because there’s never enough research on PCs, but there’s been a lot more research in other conditions. We’ll say somewhat comparable. Sometimes we have to make a little bit of a leap of faith that people who have pre-diabetes,

you know, that type of thing, or even, you know, full-blown diabetes, they have metabolic syndrome that they do have a fair amount of metabolic dysfunction in common with women, with PCOS, even if the underlying issues were not really the same, they still have these metabolic issues that are very comparable. And so now we know that when people have metabolic syndrome,

they have a complete dysregulation of their endocannabinoid system. So endocannabinoids are liquid signaling agents derive from a fatty acid of the family called omega six. So, you know, there’s probably people have heard there’s omega three there’s omega six is also omega nine, which we won’t go into, but a mega six is the forms, the precursors of a whole bunch of lipid signaling agents.

So they’re like communicators. So we now know, we did not know this until relatively recently that signaling agents, in other words, information delivers in the body can be made from amino acids. They’re the building blocks of proteins. And when you have small numbers of amino acids linked together, those are called peptides. When they’re longer numbers of amino acid chains,

those are called hormones and neurotransmitters. Okay. But when they’re lipids they’re they create other signaling agents that are called endocannabinoids that are dry from omega six. And then there’s another whole group from omega three that are called protectins and resolvins, and, and there’s this incredible interconnection between all these different signaling agents and hormones. Well, it turns out that hormones and the endocannabinoid system are completely linked together in the female menstrual cycle.

So this is like, and also in every aspect of reproduction, it turns out that extra dial actually increases the production and the levels of one of the endocannabinoids, Colt and Nanda might now enendomide has like what you might call a phony baloney out there called cannabis. So cannabis has different types of compounds within it that actually combined to our own receptors. So they’re not,

it’s like phyto estrogens from plants can bind to estrogen receptors, but they’re not actually estrogens from our body. They’re actually, it’s a miracle like how come this plant has a substance, right. Binds to our receptors, you know, and can, and excuse me, and can actually be helpful. Well, it turns out at the endocannabinoids can bind to our receptors too,

and it turns out they can have profound effects. And THC is the actual endo-cannabinoid, that’s kind of similar in its binding properties to enendomide, which is why reproductive age women should stay far away from marijuana because the THC is not found in hemp. It’s only found in cannabis from marijuana and it can totally mess up a woman’s menstrual cycle can make her more infertile.

So I want to make this clear women with PCOM in particular, but really any women of reproductive age really should steer clear of marijuana because of the THC can really have an impact. And there’s concerns of course, in pregnancy and miscarriage and preterm labor. Well, it turns out that estrogen from the ovary increases the production of enendomide. Now people who have read or anything about marijuana,

they know that THC can also make people get munchies, right. They can make, they get, oh, I’m so hungry. I’m gonna eat a lot, but it also makes them feel happy. You know? So it’s interesting that these things actually happen in our menstrual cycle that’s and it’s like amazing because as estrogen levels rise, and then you have this giant spike that precedes ovulation that’s when enendomide spikes in terms of its levels,

when estrogen spikes and randomize bytes, well like everything in the body, there’s a feedback system. So when you have high, enendomide it actually downregulates the production of estrogen. So first estrogen causes an endophyte to go up and then an end to my causes, estrogen to go down. That’s why right after that big spike of estrogen, you have a big drop of estrogen.

And then you also then, because estrogen is down, it there’s a big drop of enendomide. And then the endocannabinoid system production stays really low. And then progesterone starts to be produced and progesterone suppresses the production of these endocannabinoids. And then the endocannabinoids stay really low. If they person gets pregnant, it stays low through the whole pregnancy and then rises, right as labor is actually is insane.

It’s instituting and initiating labor with the rise of the endocannabinoid production. So you can see this, this incredible correlation and relationship between these two. Well, it turns out that when women have metabolic disorder, they often will have regulation of their menstrual cycle disorder. Their periods are off and their endocannabinoid system is off and they actually have a dysregulation of enendomide and they have too much.

So they have this surplus of endocannabinoids. So you can actually think of metabolic syndrome as sort of a surplus of the endocannabinoids, particularly of the enendomide. And it turns out that you get like a resistance to it and you get dysregulated eating because enendomide like THC has an impact on appetite and appetite regulation. So women who have PCOS and also people with metabolic syndrome have a complete dysregulation of their appetite system through a dysregulation of the endocannabinoid system.

And because the endocannabinoid system is heavily related to the immune system and the GI tract and brain and emotions. So you have a dysregulation of emotions of the gut, a lot of dysregulation of the gut and also of the immune system. And that’s all now manifesting in women with PCOS, but nobody understood any of these interrelationships until really, really recently. So that’s why women with PCOS have a state of chronic low consistent inflammation,

because they have a dysregulation of their endocannabinoid system, which also helps to regulate the immune system. And as well, estrogen has a direct effect. So there’s a direct and an indirect effect on the immune system, both through the endocannabinoid system, that’s dysregulated and through estrogen being into low quantity. So it turns out that like everything in the body, there’s the push pull the balance.

Well, you have different receptors in the endocannabinoid system, CB one and CB two. And you know, you have this imbalance and it may be that when you, if you give something like him and we need more data because hemp, the cannabis that comes from hemp doesn’t have any of the THC type of property. It doesn’t have that. It doesn’t have that.

It just has CBD and friends. You know, they like it’s entering the entourage effect, but it doesn’t have THC so that it may actually help because you have this over of the enendomide, it’s like this over, and then you get resistance. It’s just totally dysregulated that you may help to push it back into balance by giving, you know, the ones that are balancing out the CB one receptors with the CB two receptors,

and it gets way more complex because there are all these other receptors that we now know that are impacted, including ones that are heavily related, related to metabolism like the Pete par receptors. So, but it may turn out that, and we need more data on this, but giving hemp based cannabis products, you know, the CBD and, and friends,

I call it CBD and friends that you may help to balance out this dysregulation of your own. Indogenous your own internal endocannabinoid system. So, you know, it’s really exciting to look at some of these balances. We know that women, for example, with endometriosis sometimes benefit because they have a complete dysregulation of their immune systems within their pelvis. It goes kind of crazy creating all that out of control inflammation that leads to all that,

you know, the inflammation associated with endometriosis. But so, and by the way, just as a side note, women with PCLs have significantly higher rates of uterine fibroids and endometriosis than the average population of women. So it’s not uncommon to say that, to find that these conditions can all be in the same woman’s body. So, you know, so it’s really an interesting thing just because a woman has endometriosis or PCs doesn’t mean she doesn’t also have the other or uterine fibroids.

So all of these things, it’s like, you know, like how much bad luck and you have, well, we have to go back to, well, there’s also good luck because you have this underlying, you know, ability to become really healthy. But you know, you, because of your immune system dysregulation, you have more chances of having multiple problems when you have PCOS.

But, you know, and, and I am excited to continue to learn more about the relationship of the endocannabinoid system and its dysregulation in women with PCs. And in terms of fertility, the dysregulated endocannabinoid system may be very much part of the reason for the high rates of miscarriages in women with PCOS. And even when they go through like IVF, that’s why I say to all of my patients and all of you listening out there that even if you do end up just like I said,

a certain percentage will need to go on pharmaceuticals. You know, 90% lifestyle only, but some need pharmaceuticals. Well, no matter how hard you work, no matter what you do, there will be some percentage that we just can’t get pregnant. And we do need to do something like the advanced reproductive technologies, like in vitro fertilization. That’s not a failure.

It’s just, but here’s the thing. Once people, women go into couples go into IVF, there’s a very high failure rate that the highest failure rate of any group that goes into IVF is women with PCOS. So what is my goal? Even if you end up with IVF, you want to improve your chances of success in every stage of it, not just getting pregnant,

but not having a miscarriage, not having pregnancy related complications and not having a baby who is genetically altered, epigenetically modified. So that, that baby turns out to have higher risk of diabetes and infertility and such, you know, when that child is growing up. So we want to get everyone optimally healthy before they try to become pregnant, no matter what they end up doing for getting a fertility help,

if they have to, because we’ll dramatically improve their chances of everything turning out. Right. Well, it turns out that it’s the most fascinating thing ever, but the endocannabinoid system is completely related to how it turns out that the embryo, the blastocyst, that’s the stage that it’s in, how it actually implants into the uterine wall. You need to have the exact amount and the exact relationship of the endocannabinoid system and the area of the uterus,

where the, the embryo, the blastocyst will actually implant has the lowest amount of endocannabinoids in that little section of the uterus than any other section of the uterus. And it, when you see they actually have photos, you know, these amazing photos that show the fibers of the uterus actually partying like the red sea, they actually go into swirls and they actually move apart.

And then the little embryo actually goes in. It’s a, it’s the most amazing thing that’s happening. And it’s actually critically important that you not only have plenty of progesterone. And part of the reasons that you need the high progesterone is because progesterone suppresses the endocannabinoid system, the endocannabinoid production. So, and it’s just, this just opens up and then you get this really great implantation,

which may not be happening properly in women with PCOS because of these dysregulations. But by getting the lifestyle stuff first, and for just a few months, you can tremendously impact all of this, all of these metabolic dysregulations and allow fertility to occur, hopefully. And in most cases, spontaneously and naturally, but even when you need IVF, you’ll have a much greater success rate.

So it’s so important. So, you know, it’s, it’s a lot of complicated stuff, but I’m really kind of excited that you brought up the endocannabinoid system. We Talked about it. That’s super interesting. We highly recommend CBD, you know, to help with sleep and inflammation. And I’ve read that it’s helped with anxiety and it’s insulin resistance. And all of the things that women are with PCs are struggling with metabolically.

And speaking of IVF, I just wanted to also talk about NRC natal supplements, because I found that so many people are getting pregnant, you know, obsoleting, regular periods by taking in also tall. And it’s honestly such a shame that oftentimes we go to the doctor’s office and we’re handed birth control. We’re not told a single thing about it’s miraculous benefits.

I want to say, and, you know, Metformin as well. So, Oh no. So the inositols are fascinating. They really are fascinating. So in terms of the inositols, and by the way, and also tall, they, it can be used in high doses for believe it or not anxiety. And that’s actually, well-known in the integrative medicine world at high doses of a nozzle can help with anxiety.

And it probably does that through helping to produce more estrogen in the brain. So it’s really interesting because the brain can also produce estrogen and that in turn is going to affect the endocannabinoid system. And it’s all in fact, a lot of people now think that the antianxiety effect of estrogen is through the endocannabinoid system in the brain. But in terms of in the ovary,

it turns out that as I mentioned, there’s this problem with converting testosterone into estrogen in the ovary through action of the enzyme called aromatase. Well, it turns out that the inositols are critically important for actually having and the conversion testosterone into estrogen. So we did not know this. Also. We didn’t understand even what the mechanism was and there’s multiple mechanisms,

but in the ovary, it turns out that there is another enzyme it’s called, and this is also in other organs, but this enzyme is called a Pema race. So a Pema race is essential to convert de Cairo NASSA not-so-subtle into myo-inositol. And it’s my one hospital in the ovary that helps to like trigger the function of aromatase, to convert testosterone into estrogen.

And you need to have that because once again, you cannot opulate unless you have this giant spike of estrogen, well, you can’t get that giant spike of estrogen if you’re not making estrogen and you can’t make it, if you, if you don’t have proper PIM race and then you also have proper aromatase action. So that’s why for the ovary, the type of inositol that you want is myo-inositol not de Cairo will actually,

if you have too much of it, it actually can block a pivot, like a lot of things in the body. If you have too much, it blocks things. So it’s actually too much de Cairo in the ovary will actually block the proper function of this enzyme, a PIM res, and then you will not have the proper amounts of myo-inositol. So you don’t want to give a ton of de Cairo in hospital,

especially in women with PCLs because they’re having problems already with their. It doesn’t work. Right. Anyway. So, and that may be actually a big part of why the aromatase isn’t working is actually going back a notch to a PIM race. So Probably why the 40 to one ratio is so common, the 40 to one ratio of myo and de Kira and ASA tall.

When people look for the supplement And we can, we can touch on that too. So, right. So in the, what they have found and is that in different parts of the body, you can have different ratios of de Cairo and myo-inositol. So let me explain what they are de Cairo and nostril versus Maya nostril. So in NASA, tolls are a family of something like six forms.

They all look alike in terms of their molecular structure. So if you wrote them out on a piece of paper, they would all have the same carbon and oxygen and hydrogen, they all the same exact formula. The difference is they’re 3d the cold stereotactic. So for example, this is my arm. Now it’s still my arm. If I go like this,

if I go like this, I go like that. It’s still my arm. But what I’m doing is I’m changing. It’s 3d, right? So stereo isomers of a not-so-subtle, they’re all exactly the same formulation, but there’s a range differently in space. And that’s the difference. It’s like confessing, they’re scary. They’re called stereo isomers. So they’re all the same formula,

just different in space. Okay. So, which of course ultimately matters. Now, it turns out that in the liver de Cairo in NASSA tall is really important for the functions of the liver that have to do with glucose regulation. The liver is like a metabolic powerhouse and it’s the liver that actually is very key to glucose production from glycogen stores. And when you don’t have enough de Cairo and not-so-subtle,

then you have dysfunction of the liver and it can produce an untold amounts of not needed glucose. And you have problems with glucose transport into the cells as well. So de Cairo inositol is important for glucose metabolism in the liver, and also transporting through the cell membrane, the glucose into the cells. So that’s what de Cairo Inessa told us. So you have this sort of difference in the different parts of the body as to what these inositols are doing.

So it turns out that if you give only myo-inositol, then maybe you won’t have enough DeCaro in us at all. And if you give all, then you will be suppressing ovarian function that needs myo-inositol. So exactly what is going to be right. Nobody knows you have to, we have to be honest because when we look at NASSA talls and their ratios,

they really are not the same in different tissues. And they’ve looked at like the ratios in the ovary are not going to be the same as in the, in the blood that’s circulating. It’s not going to be the same as in the liver, but there were some researchers I think, predominantly in Italy that use that ratio of one to 40, and they came out with good results.

We need more data, but we know that using the one to two 40 is a duno Harmer. It’s not going to do any harm. Some people think, well, maybe we should have a formulation that has maybe higher-ed de Cairo. Maybe that’s too small and amount, especially for metabolic functions. Some people do fine just by doing other things to regulate glucose regulation.

Cause there’s a lot of other stuff, you know, that can be helpful for glucose regulation as well. And just giving the myo-inositol. So these are sort of individual decisions that it’s good to do with someone who can be either a physician, a life coach, a health coach, or, you know, a nutritionist or someone who knows something about PCFS and the individual’s situation,

because some people may have, you know, they don’t have so much dysregulation of their metabolism, but they just don’t ovulate. And then someone is really already diabetic and they really definitely need more of the de Cairo because their metabolism so messed up. So that’s where some individualization comes in, but all of this data is published. It’s really fascinating. And most of the conventional doctors aren’t even paying the least bit of attention and it’s even gets more interesting because the particularly the myo-inositol in the ovary,

not only, but it may also be with the DeCaro sits. Well, we need more data, but what we, they found is that not only does it help with just generally ovulating, but it also improves the quality of the eggs and the quality of the embryo when it’s made. So, I mean, and, and, and more successful implantation.

So we know this is way more involved and way more beneficial than just obsoleting. You get better, everything, better eggs, better embryos, better success rates with IVF as well. And it was quite a bit now published on that. So, yeah, I’m a big fan of the nozzles. And I think even when you don’t give huge doses, it does see some benefits in terms of mood.

Yeah. And speaking of the data too, I know there’s two research studies happening right now and one in Penn state and the one in Baylor using a 40 to one ratio of, and also thoughts. So hopefully that’ll at least give us some more data on to, to see like, what is the proper ratio that may be better for at least, you know,

a good percentage of women with PCOS. Absolutely. And it’s really good to have independent research, you know, not just the manufacturing, the product and so, right, right. Agreed. And we need this. And then I hope that they’ll do other studies with other ratios because, you know, we know now that the ratios are not the same in every Oregon,

it’s not standard everywhere, you know, so we definitely need more data, but it’s nice that some, some doctors are now interested because in the U S every year, it seems like less money is allocated by the NIH for research, for women, with PCO, not more it’s every year, it’s less. And a lot of the research is coming out of other countries on the planet because the us is so far behind in terms of PCLs research.

Yeah. And I feel like we’re not putting an emphasis on, on the importance of oblation, whether or not you want to have a child. And oftentimes we’re just handed birth control on told to come back when we feel like having a child. And it’s like completely disregarding the importance of progesterone and obviating naturally. And, you know, it’s just, let’s shut the whole thing down because we don’t know what’s wrong.

And then pick up where we left off in 10 years. So, oh, I’m so glad you brought that up because unfortunately that has been the approach for many medical problems, like for auto-immune problems, instead of trying to get to underlying, excuse me, underlying issues and so forth and healing the gut and doing other things. It’s like, let’s just shut down the immune system or some big portion of the immune system for women with menstrual dysfunction.

And it could be any menstrual dysfunction, anything from PMs to menstrual cramps, to heavy periods, irregular periods. And of course, women with PCLs can have all of the above that it’s just shut down the system, you know, get rid of it. And that is completely ignoring the fact that we need those hormones. And I don’t mean phony baloney stuff that comes in a pill,

which is not human identical, and has completely different effects and a lot of very negative effects. But you need, like, we started with saying, you need the real hormones in the right amounts at the right time. And that’s the beautiful rhythms of a woman’s body. And these rhythms, just like I mentioned, the endocannabinoid system has a rhythm. That’s totally in sync with the rhythms of the menstrual cycle.

All of everything in the body has a rhythm. We have daily rhythms, that’s the circadian rhythm. We even have rhythms within the day. We call them ultradian rhythms, you know, like pulsating with them during the day. And of course, women have the beautiful lunar rhythm, the menstrual cycle. And then of course there are even seasonal rhythms. So,

you know, we’re different at different times of the year, different seasons, just as all animals are. That’s why there’s different. Like the breeding season, what that gives that. Of course it’s when animals are more likely to breed. And there’s a reason for that. It’s all about survival. You know, when is it best to deliver a newborn?

You know, when are you most likely to survive? That’s why in the, like Bambi, all those babies were born in the spring because they’re more likely to have food and they’ll survive and get fat, and then they could survive through the winter. So, you know, it’s all programmed into us and it’s not optional. It’s actually in our genes to,

to have all these beautiful rhythms. When you’re on birth control pills, you have no rhythms, you have none. And these hormones like estrogen and progesterone, but I always focus on estrogen is like that man and progesterone is, you know, like Robin, they’re like, it’s a psychic, but they’re both critically important. They, they need each other,

right? So when you have estrogen in the body, every organ in the body is going to be happy. Estrogen is made by the ovaries. There are receptors for estrogen, a stir dial in every single Oregon. And that’s not an accident. It’s because nature expected that a fertile woman would have to be healthy. I mean, isn’t it like when you think about it?

How could any doctor, although this is commonplace, think that reproduction is like just one little part that you could just like take or leave. You just take it or leave it. It’s like you can have longer short hair. It really doesn’t affect how your body functions, right? If you cut your hair, you’re still the same person. If you lop off reproduction,

you are not the same person because those hormones are not about just making babies. They’re about keeping the entire body healthy so that you can have a healthy pregnancy, a healthy mom, and do it over and over and have healthy children. Nature made it to which one, body serving one prime directive, whether we like it or not, which is to have healthy reproduction.

And that requires a healthy body. So estrogen is everywhere throughout the body, in every single organ. When you get rid of an, all those organs have rhythms, they all have clock genes. They all work in sync with the master clock and they have their own inborn clock genes to keep everything working together. And when you get rid of the beautiful rhythms,

the circadian, the ultradian, the lunar, the seasonal, you get rid of all the rhythms. And you just give this phony baloney hormones that are not human. Identical were never designed to be in a body, have completely different effects on the receptors and work on, not even just estrogen receptors, often like the progestins that pretend progesterones. They work on other receptors like androgen receptors and aldosterone receptors.

That’s like involved in fluid and electrolyte regulation. I mean, they’re like all over the place. They work on some of the cortisone receptors. Like, you know, it’s like crazy. They, they do all kinds of weird things and they have a lot of side effects and they’re actually all recognized by the us government on the NIH national institutes of health websites as endocrine disruptors,

just like plastic, just like flame retardants they’re they’re endocrine disruptors. And if you think about it, they were invented to disrupt the normal hormone. So you can’t be fertile. And so that’s a bad sign. You know, ancient peoples understood that fertility was a vital sign of health and the menstrual cycle is a vital sign of female wellbeing. That’s why they had fertility gods,

because that would be a sign of health, not just fertility, they’re all together. Fertility is a sign of health and a woman, a regular normal, healthy menstrual sign is a sign of a healthy woman. And it’s like a red flag. When a woman has an abnormal menstrual cycle, something is wrong with her. The solution isn’t take down her ovarian function,

it’s fixed the woman and fix the underlying problem. So she can actually be healthy and thrive and feel good. And none of that happens on birth control pills. So birth control pills. If you look at the array of side effects, they’re like increasing blood clots, well women with PCOS innately because they’re inflamed and they have dysregulated estrogen, they are innately more prone to blood clots.

That’s a fact blur birth control pills increase the risk of blood clots that’s effect. There’s now published studies showing that when you put the two together, you’re increasing it even more like that’s crazy. You know, we don’t give birth control pills to women who are smoking because it’s bad for them. It was so good for them. We would say everyone who smokes should go immediately on birth control pills,

or how about 65 year old women? Let’s put them all on birth control pills. It’s so good for them. Well, we don’t do that because we know that it increased the risk of heart attack and stroke and high blood pressure. So, you know, so we’re not going to do that. It increases blood clotting. That is a very bad sign.

Blood clots occur naturally in a person who’s doing the right thing to prevent hemorrhage, right? That’s why you would clot your blood. So you don’t bleed to death. Right? And that’s part of the inflammatory response of the body as part of our survival mechanism. But when you have chronic low level inflammation, you’re more prone to blood clotting because your immune system is now in a dysregulated state.

And that’s what birth control pills do. They create a metabolic dysregulated state that makes women more prone to metabolic dysfunction, which includes blood clots and hypertension, heart attacks, and strokes. Women with PCs already have higher risk for all those things. What the heck are we doing to giving, to give them birth control pills? The fact that they’re still young.

So even though they have a higher risk, they’re still more likely not to have one of those outcomes in the short run. What are we doing to them in the long run? There’s now a recent paper published that showed that teenagers who got started on birth control pills have a lifetime increase risk of heart disease, a lifetime. If you’re started on birth control pills in your teen years,

it’s really hard to get data once you’re over the 10 years, because it’s like everyone is on it. That’s the problem. You know, it’s like 90 plus percent of women are on birth control pills or similars during their life. So where’s the control group. There is no control group, but for teenagers, you can get sort of a control group because not all teenagers yet are on birth control pills.

Although now it seems like, you know, in a high school, all the girls are on birth control pills and it’s crazy bad. It’s increasing their risk of dying prematurely. It’s anyone telling their moms that is anyone giving informed consent. How about the fact that it significantly increases the risk of cervical cancer? So we give them HPV vaccines and then we give them birth control pills.

They have exactly the opposite effect on cervical cancer. This is like a crazy maker situation. Yeah. And somehow the Default it’s somehow the default thing that’s recommended in like a lot of cases, The percent of the time. And that’s all they know. And that, that has to stop. Of course, I’m not in favor of people having pregnancies when they’re not interested and not ready.

But number one, we need to define the problem. If we’re going to find other solutions. I mean, you just have to be honest, nothing can be too big to fail. It just can’t be. We can’t say like, for example, I’m just going to make this up. Although it kind of sounds true. Like we put like too much fluoride in our water and it’s poison.

Okay. You probably knew that. Right. Okay. So we, we have to say, at some point we made a big mistake. We have to take all that fluoride out of the water that we can’t like poison people, you know? And that even like the government said, we like overdosed everybody on fluoride. So we’ve got to top it.

We have to stop. So if we can’t say we’ve poisoned all the women with birth control pills, but we’re just going to keep doing it. We just don’t care. We have to be honest about it and say that these are chemical endocrine disruptors that are actually creating harm in these women’s bodies. It’s not killing them. Instantly. Look, you can give people are Snick for a long time before they die.

You know, it’s still poison, right? Poison is poison. Whether it’s slow poison or rapid poison. And we need to be honest about it. And women with PCOS are especially susceptible to the harms. And I can see when, you know, and I have to be, you have to give it some fair due to be well-balanced here because birth control pills suppress ovarian function.

There will be less testosterone. Also. It increases through the liver, the production of a protein called sex hormone, binding globulin, which also binds up the testosterone. So by lowering testosterone, you can improve acne. Okay? So, but there are other ways to deal with that problem besides doing what we just described besides taking down the ovaries and not letting any ovarian function or any rhythms.

The other problem with the sex hormone binding globulin is that in some women and actually a fair number, it never comes down. We don’t even know what we’re doing. What happens when you’re older and you have this really high level of sex women, hormone binding globulin, and it’s binding up your sex hormones. And we don’t even know what we’re doing. I mean,

these, some of these long-term effects nobody’s even looked at. We do know that when you start women at a young age on birth control pills, you also can affect their musculoskeletal development. They’re going to have less functional and healthy muscles, ligaments, tendons, bone as well. Their vaginal tissues don’t develop properly. Then they’re more prone to having painful intercourse,

sexual problems, a small bladder, because estrogen is very key to skin health. A lot of people don’t realize that estrogen is. That’s why after menopause women start looking a lot older because without estrogen, you lose collagen elastin that keeps skin elastic and keeps it filled out. And you lose the hyleronic acid, which keeps them the moisture. So your skin gets all dry and wrinkly and you lose the protective barrier functions,

right? The sister, she was having arthritis after getting off of birth shul. And it wasn’t until she went gluten and dairy. Now, if she eats gluten or dairy, she gets like a sudden feeling of arthritis in her hands, You know, shortly afterwards. Well, the other thing that happens with birth control pills is that it increases your risk of developing autoimmune diseases because of altered gut function,

leaky gut, and it alters your immune system. So it makes you more prone to developing chronic low grade, like sort of the invisible infections, the chronic low grade infections in the mucosal linings, like for example, women on birth control pills are more prone to getting more bladder infections and vaginal infections. And they’re more likely to acquire a sexually disease. So there’s a lot of issues and their skin and their,

their muscle, their whole musculoskeletal system. And the bladder is part has like skin like lining. And so the bladder doesn’t develop properly. So it doesn’t stretch well. So they have small bladder capacity. So if you ever see any young women or middle-aged women, and they’re always like looking for a bathroom, I call that bathroom mapping. It’s like, you know,

wherever you go, it’s like, where’s the bathroom. Like, didn’t you just go? It’s like, we’ll have to go again. Or they’re like a dog and a fire hydrant. Like, oh, the bathroom I’ll go. It’s like, you just went. No, well, I’ll go to that bathroom. You’re always like peeing because their bladders feel full so readily because they don’t really distend.

They’re not flexible. And, and nothing is flexible. Their joints aren’t flexible. Things are ripping and tearing. They’re more prone to inflammation in their joints. They’re more prone to like so many bad things. Like Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is so much more common in women. Who’ve been on birth control pills and they’re not even being tested for it. So were Already,

they were already susceptible to it. If they had PCs before Getting, getting on birth control. Got it. So now that’s why so many women with PCOS have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. A lot of the doctors don’t even look for it. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s one of the things that I think like 30% of women with PCOS have a thyroid dysregulation and it’s completely overlooked.

And it’s probably more because like I said, you know, most of the doctors aren’t even checking for it. Yeah, Exactly. I mean, I have so many, like I could go on and on, we have to have you back on our podcast. Well, you know, these are such important things for people to hear because they’re not, they’re not hearing it and you know,

they’re suffering and they don’t know where to turn and they don’t know what to do. And it’s just, it just breaks my heart, you know, to see what goes on and you know, and it doesn’t mean, you know, about pregnancy. It’s like you said, it, you know, it’s about having hormonal balance and metabolic homeostasis so that you could be a healthy,

happy woman. And this is just not happening for women with PCOS, because they’re just being over drugged. But with no end in sight and no clear understanding by anybody as to what you’re actually doing to the body, no exit strategy off the break. I’m so glad that I bumped into you on Google. When I was searching for doctors after I was diagnosed,

because I literally was the stereotypical situation just told, go on birth control, no explanation, no reasoning, no other recommendation. I was so confused. Went on. Google found you learn so much, took some time to apply it to my life because you did say a lot of recommendations. You know, it’s hard, it’s hard. It’s not, you know,

we don’t want to dummy it down. It’s hard. You have to be strong, resilient, but everyone has it in them to take the Issue of women with These are the women, the leaders remember, you’re the leaders of the tribe. You just, you know, somebody stepped in front of you. You need to get them out of the way again.

Exactly. I love that. Well, one last question, before we go, what does an ideal day of food look like for you? Well, I happen to love whole grains. A lot of people have put, you know, I’ve defended the fence list. Like I have to defend organic. So I also defend organic whole grains. So my,

one of my favorite whole grains is amaranth, which is a gluten-free grain, one of the ancient grains. So I would just love a bowl. And I put in all kinds of seeds and nuts and a little bit of usually if I can like some fresh fruit, I just chop it in, but I’ll also use maybe a little bit of chopped up organic dates,

by the way, don’t be afraid of dates. Don’t do a ton of it, but dates are not what gives people diabetes. It’s eating processed, garbage and eating in the middle of the night and not going to bed at the right time and all these other things that gives people and all the environmental toxicants that are out there, the pollution, everything it’s not eating organic dates.

Okay. But you can put a little bit in, and then I love organic soy milk. You know, that’s where I defend soy milk. Soy is actually when it’s organic and it’s whole not processed into like pretend to, you know, cheese ice cream or, you know, headphones or something. It actually is a fertility food. You know, it’s like,

there’s actually published data that organic whole soy, unless you have a sensitivity, you know, dumb people have sensitivities to any food, which is not an indictment of the food. It’s just, what’s happened to your gut. And so in your immune system. But so then I like to put that in and I love to have like a yam. So I would love like a side of a yam.

So this would be like, one of my favorite breakfast would be, and it’s a big bowl and it really fills you up and it holds you and has protein. And then, you know, the yam and then all the nuts and seeds adds a lot of healthy fats. So I’m getting lots of fats and, and also the soy milk also has a lot of protein in it.

Cause this is a pretty high protein food. You know, soy is a high protein food. So, and then I love salads. So I would love for lunch and I put everything under the sun into a salad now, now, so I try to have a big breakfast and a big lunch and then a very small dinner. And so I would have a salad that would be like really big and heavy.

And it like every kind of vegetable you can imagine. And sometimes I usually have no more than three ounces of an animal protein in a day. Sometimes I don’t have any, but that’s what was actually called the sustainability diet that came out of the Harvard of public health, sustainable for the planet as well as for the individual, because you know, our planet has so many billions of people.

They can’t support raising all those feedlot animals. And if you say, I’m going to get free range and I’m going to get, you know, pasture, you know, you know, pastured and all that. There’s not enough space on this planet to do that and feed everyone, all those animals. So I try to really limit it to no more than three ounces.

And I will do like the, the free range chicken or I actually, cause I grew up with this. So I actually like anchovies and sardines. I know it’s not everybody’s taste, but they’re really full of protein and omega three. So I do like to eat sardines, you know, wild caught sardines. And I’ll put that also sometimes like into the salad,

I’ll get one gram of omega three that way. And then for dinner, I like sometimes like a little bowl of soup, just really light, but I drink it with a little teaspoon. So it, it keeps me busy for a long time. And then for my dessert, I, and now this is not to everyone’s taste, but I get organic cocoa powder,

just a hundred percent cocoa powder. And I mix it with water and a giant mug that looks like a soup bowl. And then I put in another little splash of either a nut milk, like hemp milk or almond milk. And I don’t add any sweetener because to me the, the, the nut milks have sweetness naturally to them, to me, they just do.

And that’s my giant dessert. It’s like really chocolatey. And, you know, there’s so much data now on the health benefits of Coco, you know, and it’s, you know, w when did you have no sugar add? There’s like zero sugar added to this. It’s amazing how few calories is in this. And it’s all fat, it’s all healthy fat,

the cocoa, the cocoa butter fat. And so that would probably be one of my favorite days of food. And then I would, and I would also, I left out that I probably also would, when I make my salad with lunch, I put in fruit because I put everything under the sun into that bowl, you know? So it’s all kinds of vegetables and it’s cooked vegetables that are now cold plus,

you know, raw vegetables, you know, there’s like nothing that’s off the, off the menu when it comes to putting it into my salad bowl. So anything can go. And I always like to put in some fruit too. And, and then my favorite dressing would be some like the Samba, a little bit of basaltic vinegar and maybe a drop of really high quality olive oil.

So that, that would be like perfect day of food for me. Amazing. To step it up. Yeah. I love the three ounce rule. That’s actually like a great, great idea, as well as the, like, I love how, like, you don’t have any processed foods in your diet. It’s like, it’s all like real natural naturally occurring foods,

No glue, no, I’ve been dairy and gluten-free for so many years, I can’t even remember anymore. It’s probably probably getting close to 20 years and I don’t miss it at all. You know, honestly, there’s so many good things that are out there that are dairy and gluten-free like, it’s like nothing to me. I don’t even think twice it anymore.

You know, me too. Not, not at all. I mean, I, well, maybe once in a blue moon, when I see someone eating like a homemade croissant, but then I move on, I move on really fast. It’s like, there’s always something else. Right? Exactly. Yeah. Tough Times. Been gluten dairy free for a long time.

I’m like 95% gluten. They’re free. The only time I have cheeses basically and Thai and puts it on my sandwich, but that’s my own. That’s my only answer. Well, And I want to say, like, for everyone, like Luton, isn’t intrinsically evil. There are some really healthy foods that have gluten. Like if you had organic barley or organic rye,

they’re hard to get, don’t get the non-organic and excuse me, they have gluten, but they’re not, they’re not evil foods, but for so many of us who have like leaky gut syndrome or auto-immune and Pecos, you know, any kind of gut issues and all these other things, even like metabolic dysfunction, you know, we just, for some,

you know, gluten, there’s a lot of, auto-immunity a lot of sensitivity and it’s intrinsically a little bit irritating to the gut, but for people who are incredibly healthy, that could be you, you know, they’re really healthy. There’s nothing really wrong with them. They’ve been like eating really good food from the get-go and their moms were healthy when they were pregnant with them and all that good stuff.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong about eating like organic rye or organic barley and smell spelt. You know, these, there are some, you know, really Pharaoh. These are some of them ancient grains that have gluten. It’s just that I can tell you for most of my patients it’s off the menu because they don’t, they don’t meet the criteria of being like really healthy.

Right. So it’s not happening for my patients. And, and it doesn’t work for me because like so many PCFS women, I do have Hashimoto’s, which I’ve been also able to overturn by doing my kind of diet, you know, but I’m not going back. I’m not, you know, there’s no croissant on this planet. That’s worth auto immune disease.

It’s not isn’t That the truth. I swear. There is no croissant on this planet. That’s worth having the PCs symptoms come back or piece of cheese. No, if you’ve lived through like unremitting, acne, no periods, infertility, like, you know, like when you think about, when you look at the scale, you say croissant or all that other bad stuff you say off the table.

Right. Exactly. I mean, I see the cystic acne come back when I even have one square of cheese consistently every day for a week, you know, or if I started, let’s say, I’ve never done this, but I imagine if I started eating gluten again, the scale would just go up and up and up irregular periods, all of the symptoms.

I’m not here for it. No, not worth it. Definitely. Well, we should talk about this on another episode. Yeah. Dive into diet. Always to be continued. Absolutely. Because see the story never ends. I know that’s a cliche, but it’s so true. Cliches are always true For any sister listening. I highly recommend reading PCs,

SOS. It’s a great book. If you’re newly diagnosed or in the middle of your peace Joe’s journey, it’s a great way to learn about your PCs and just get down to like, like as Dr. Felice Gersh mentioned, like getting down to the root underlying issues and connecting with nature in a lot of ways than just like, you know, managing your Symptoms on the rhythm.

Yeah. Thank you so much for joining Us before we go. If there’s any way our listeners can contact you, if they are maybe seeking help or just to learn more from your resources, is there a website that could go? Sure. Well, yeah. My, my office website and there’s an email box, there is integrative M G i.com. So it’s,

my group is a integrative medical group of Irvine. So we have the website is integrative M G i.com. And I have an Instagram live show at D R period. They have to put the period and Dr. Period Felice Gersh, and I’m doing lots and lots of Instagram live shows, and they are all curated on my YouTube channel. And so, you know,

love to have people join me and like me, because I’m not a social media, you know, mega star. That’s not, I’m a doctor. You know, I, I take care of patients in my office every day. Like today, today I was seeing patients all day long and that’s my primary mission. But my secondary mission is to help women who can’t come to see me for,

you know, or even do telemedicine that I can help to educate them and provide them with the tools so that they can actually improve everything in their lives. Wonderful. We will be watching. Oh yeah. Yeah. And we’ll put that in the podcast, description your website as well as your Instagram. And definitely when the episode comes out, we’ll be posting in stories.

So we’ll try to get people, more people coming to your, to your channels for sure. Cause they need to hear you talk about all of this. Well, I’d love that. And if people want to come and see me, you know, like I said, I’m a brick and mortar practice where I see people in my office. I also do telemedicine.

Fortunately, we’re allowed to do that now. That’s great. Wonderful, awesome. Well, thank you everybody for listening and thank you, especially Dr. Fields, Chris for coming here and being with us and answering all our questions. Thank you. Pleasure. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, you have to come check out the sisterhood. It’s my monthly membership site,

where sisters just like you are learning how to move through the stages of CCOs from Sage one cold and alone at the doctor’s office to stage five, nailing the PCs lifestyle, gluten and dairy free, get ready to finally feel in control of your body. Again. Ah,