Struggling with hormonal imbalances? In this episode, Shannon Davis breaks down the crucial role insulin resistance plays in PCOS and shares simple, practical tips to improve your metabolic health. Join us and discover how small changes can lead to big results in your health journey!

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Show Notes

• Guest: Shannon Davis, registered dietitian specializing in metabolic health for 18 years.

• Topics Discussed:

• What PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) is and how it’s related to insulin resistance.

• Signs and symptoms of PCOS (irregular periods, facial hair, acne, etc.).

• The role of insulin in hormone balance and ovulation.

• Testing for insulin resistance and hormone levels.

• Common treatments for PCOS, including metformin.

• Lifestyle modifications, like low-carb diets and intermittent fasting, to address insulin resistance.

• Discussion of the Feel Great system as a natural alternative for supporting metabolic health.

Key Takeaways:

1. PCOS is often misdiagnosed as a gynecological issue, but it’s rooted in insulin resistance.

2. Symptoms of PCOS include irregular periods, acne, facial hair, and hair thinning, all linked to elevated testosterone caused by insulin resistance.

3. Insulin resistance can affect both men and women, leading to conditions like PCOS in women and erectile dysfunction in men.

4. A low-carb diet, combined with intermittent fasting, can help reduce insulin levels and manage PCOS symptoms.

5. The Feel Great system, featuring yerba mate tea and a fiber matrix, helps manage insulin sensitivity naturally and has powerful anti-inflammatory properties.

Transcript:

 Welcome back to Better Than A Pill. Today, I'm excited to have Shannon Davis here and she is our registered dietitian. And just for those of you who don't know Shannon, she is for the past 18 years, she's specialized in metabolic health. She has experience in organ transplant, bariatrics, sports, nutrition, nephrology, and her passion is really helping people shift their focus to.

insulin resistance in order to heal from chronic disease. So today we're going to be talking about insulin resistance and  PCOS. So I'm super excited. Hey Shannon. Hi Carrie. Thanks for having me. Of course. I'm super excited to dive into this and just for everybody listening. I know there are people that may not even know  what PCOS is.

So why don't we start there? What is PCOS? So it stands for something called  polycystic ovarian syndrome, and it is the number one cause of infertility in females. And it's most of the time looked at as a gynecological problem. Like it is a problem with the ovaries. It's a problem with ovulation and the follicles.

And, uh, they call it polycystic because of the, uh,  All of the cysts that form they form all these little follicles and not one gets large and mature, but it's not really a gynecological problem. It's an insulin problem. Imagine that. And so what you'll see is.  Predominant as it is, it's never really treated, I think, properly.

And so that's interesting because I don't ever correlate the two together. I like, I never thought of. So yeah. Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about it. Cause I know what, so what are some signs and symptoms of it? Like, how does somebody know that it's coming on? Sure. So what females may notice is irregular periods.

Number one. Um, they may notice some facial hair. Okay. Okay. They may notice some balding around the front central part of their hair. They could notice a little hump. On their back at the back of their neck  acne severe acne or acne around their face So what you'll notice those are like some androgen male like symptoms And so what it is in there and the reason it's an insulin problem is We're all born, believe it or not, with testosterone  as females, just like men, right?

And so these testosterones have to be converted into female hormones, into estrogens at the side of the ovary. And so when we have too much insulin, It inhibits that process. So insulin inhibits an enzyme called aromatase and aromatase his job is to convert testosterone to estrogen. So if that conversion doesn't take place, we end up with too much testosterone or too much androgen.

And thus you don't get an ovulation. You don't get one dominant follicle. You get lots of tiny ones, but you can't get pregnant. And then you have those, Symptoms and signs such as the male  facial hair, the pattern baldness, the regular periods.  So then that makes sense. So it is an underlying factor that contributes to this PCOS and what if somebody wants to get tested, like in general, what kind of tests would you order to see the hormones?

So I, you would get a full hormone panel workup, like an FSH and LH and, and estradiol. There's different types of estrogens. So you would have all that and testosterone and they would look at all of the sex hormones. Also one that I would. A clinician recommended fasting insulin, which we've talked about on some of your other podcasts before, as well as probably a full thyroid panel, a full lipid panel and a one C just so I can see those metabolic parameters.

Cause it is, it's a root metabolic problem that shows its head as a reproductive problem. Just like you may see people with skin tags. that have skin tags all around their neck. It looks like it's a dermatological problem, but it's an insulin problem at root as well.  That's interesting. It's amazing that the correlation, you just don't know, like all the causes of the insulin resistance and how they're affecting us.

Yeah. And you'll see in men where they won't have PCOS, but they'll have erectile dysfunction. And so that looks like a sexual, Reproductive problem as well, but it, but 98 percent stem from an insulin problem. And so it's the same type of thing. Insulin blocks nitrous oxide from being able to vasodilate those capillaries and be able to dilate those blood vessels.

And so it's two problems that are opposite, but they're one in the same and that they all have insulin at the root cause.  It's from a standpoint of, let's say, what can somebody do? We're always going to look at,  are things outside of medicine, possibly, like, what lifestyle modifications? So we know, is there a specific diet?

Yeah, for example, that they need. Yeah. So what most people are going to have number one when they're diagnosed with PCOS is they're going to be put on metformin, which you've probably heard of. It's a very old medication. That's the number one treatment. If you really look at what metformin is, it's a medication to treat insulin.

It's a medication to treat diabetes. And so that right there should be a ding. Okay. So why am I treating this? Reproductive gynecological problems with an, with a metabolic drug. That's because it's a metabolic problem. And so it's, people are given metformin,  which really just helps increase insulin sensitivity.

It also helps you get rid of you, you pee out glucose. And, but it's not, it's a bandaid. So what we need to do is we need to fix the problem. We need to fix the root. A low carbohydrate diet is going to be the number one best thing. Because carbohydrates are the macronutrient, the illicit insulin, and we have an insulin problem.

So if insulin is the problem, we need to take out what's contributing. What is causing the insulin problem is carbohydrates and I'm not saying you have to go zero carb or even keto, but keeping those carbohydrates low because it's no different than if you have a food allergy.

If you have an allergy, let's just say to nuts,  you have to cut out the nuts.  If we have any, carbohydrate toxicity. Or an intolerance to a carbohydrate. We need to remove The contributing factor. And so we cut out sugars. We cut out processed foods. We focus on foods that are high in fiber. Yeah. Fiber is a carb, but guess what?

Fiber does the opposite. It lowers insulin. It slows the absorption of carbohydrates. So we focus on fiber. We focus on protein, chicken, fish, beef, pork, eggs, without fearing the fat that's in those. And then we focus on good quality fats.  Avocado, coconut, butter, ghee, tallow, lard. Um, olive oil and those good omega 3 fats that are anti inflammatory, that are healing to our body and our gut.

And if we do that, along with some timers, I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting or time restricted eating. Why? Because that allows insulin to come down. And so we don't necessarily have to do that. Long, like 24, 36, 48 hours, but a 12 to 16 hour fast where really you're just not eating after dinner and you're not eating breakfast and that along with movement, right?

You're a big fan of movement and exercise, right? Replace that. That has so many benefits, but not in a way that you can't. To burn calories per se, but in a way to show gratitude towards our body in a way to heal our body. And the more we move, the healthier we are in muscle soaks up in glucose without needing insulin.

And so we can uptake a lot of that glucose without needing to release insulin. Yeah. And so this is just another thing. And I know a lot of People listening, a lot of our audience are doing things to help relieve pain, prevent injury, which is a stem of inflammation, which there's other things involved that they're experiencing.

This could be one of them. So we're getting information out there when it comes to what you're saying. It just makes sense. That's there's crossover between what we need to be doing for a lot of other things with our diet and PCOS. Right. Yeah. It's no different, which makes sense to me,  of course, their movement.

And of course, we're going to do the things that are good for the body that are going to prevent injury and relieve pain, all of those things that we're taking care of. But the other thing I'm just thinking of is a couple of things that come to mind with metformin. Um, Yeah. You say it's a treatment for diabetes, but I know a lot of people that are taking it for other things, and I had no idea PCOS was one of them, and so they just, they give this drug a lot, just not a lot.

It's even now prescribed in the longevity space. Um, And with every medicine, you are going to get some type of consequence or side effect. It is a chemical. It is not natural. And when you fix something, you throw something else off kilter. So we just always need to remember that medicine is not the cure all and all be all.

Health through health. It is what we are after. Exactly. And that's why we're here today doing everything that we can to help our bodies. Maybe we can avoid a medicine that's going to have these side effects that aren't going to serve us or not going to address the root cause of what's going on with our body.

I think it's important to, for people listening to understand that. I know you mentioned restricted eating time, restricted eating or intermittent fasting. And I just want to say that it can look different for all of you in many ways, because I don't want that to ever be a barrier for anybody listening,  especially if you think, Oh my gosh, I have to stop eating breakfast.

That is not the case. The case is that you could eat three meals a day, not a snack. And still be doing a form of time restricted eating if you stop eating, right? Absolutely. And I'll give you, that's a great point and I'll give you a great example. So I was talking to my mom several months ago about incorporating some fasting and she goes, Shannon.

I just don't think me and your dad are fasters. I'm 67. Your dad's 77. And we just aren't, we just don't really want to do that. And I said, you know what, I understand that. And a week or so later, she got back to me. She goes, you know what, Shannon, I really thought about what you had to say. And she goes, We eat dinner.

We're old folks. We eat dinner early. We eat about 5: 30 and your dad likes to lay around in the morning now and sometimes I don't fix him breakfast until 9: 30 or 10  and I said, and she goes, you know what, Shannon, we are fasting. I said, that's exactly right, because if you eat at six and you go to six, that's 12 hours and then you go to nine, mommy, you just went 15 hours.

And that is intermittent fasting. You don't have to label it that. That's just what it is. And it's really just allowing gut rest. If we want to look at it from the bare bones, we don't need to eat every two to three hours. And fasting looks different for everybody. Some people, 12 hours is perfect. Some people are 14, 16, 18.

So it's what works best for you. But I am always going to recommend that we don't need to eat right before bed. I'm always going to recommend that we need to allow some time for our gut to heal in 12 hours. And I don't think that anyone is going to die of starvation for going 12 hours without food.

Yeah. That's good to hear. And I think that understanding there's different ways to approach it and maybe different times in our lives and what's going to serve us best now. I know for me initially, the thought of fasting in general did not sit well. And then it was like the first stage was maybe not snacking, but even if somebody is snacking in between their meals, they eat breakfast and then they stop eating.

dinner and they're still snacking. At least if they have a period of rest, that's a good starting point. Great starting point. And so maybe we focus on that and then the next thing we work on is if we're having a morning snack and an afternoon snack and maybe we cut out the morning snack and we see if we can go before we feel like we need it because  Truly from a physiological standpoint, we don't need it.

We are eating for this. We're eating for our brain or our dopamine release, or it's feeling something. And a lot of the times it's boredom or habitual.  And so if we can replace that habit with maybe drinking water, maybe we're really dehydrated, right? And we need to get some fluids in or so in giving yourself the grace and saying, you know what? 

I can still snack, but I'm going to try to drink. I'm going to drink my water first and I'm going to get up and I'm going to go for a walk and then I'm going to come back. And if I'm still really wanting the snack, fine, maybe I'll have it. Maybe I'll have half. And then tomorrow I'm going to try, I'm going to try to go 30 minutes longer than I did the day before.

So it's really just, I think in all aspects of our life, trying to be a little better each day. And it's a process.  Yeah, that's good. I think that's well said. And I'm doing this stuff too, for different reasons. PCOS is not something I personally struggle with, but some people listening may know, and it's always good to be educated on other people here, because I think there's crossover between all of these things. 

But with the intermittent, fasting part. I know doing that and also using a system that we've talked about too on the podcast, which is a very powerful system that has science behind it that I'm glad I'm using called the feel great system provides a form of supplementation and nourishment for the body when we are making changes in a different way.

That is also a natural Form of medicine and in many ways for our bodies. I know that a lot more than I do about, I'm learning as I go here,  but like sharing how that can help. And then also in relation to PCOS and all that too. Correct. As Kerry mentioned, I am a big fan. I use it every day. My family uses it and I have had it. 

In the last two years, probably 15 to 1600, um, clients utilizing these supplements called the field grade system. There's two components to it. We have a yerba mate tea, which most people I think have heard of yerba mate, but we have a concentrate, um, that is sugar free that's very yummy and tasty. And you drink this in the morning when you wake up.

I personally like my cold and in a big 40 ounce tumbler because that helps me get in my water and I sip on it and the benefits, it increases insulin sensitivity, which again, if we can control that mother hormone insulin, then we're controlling hunger, fat storage. our PCOS, our erectile dysfunction, our diabetes, fatty liver, all of these things, hypertension, right?

So if we can keep insulin low by ourselves being sensitive, that's good. So it increases insulin sensitivity and lowers blood pressure. It gives you just this sense of amazing energy, not a jittery caffeinated energy, but like a, I've had a really good night's rest energy and I'm focused and I'm ready to conquer the world.

It suppresses appetite and shuts the food noise off. So I know that something that's very popular these days is the semi glutides or the ozempic and the y govy and the munjaro because of their weight loss. Um,  effects and what our product does is it increases your body's own production of that GLP one peptide, which gives you the sense of the appetite suppression, the no food noise with no side effects because it's your own body's production.

So you get that benefit and then you drink that throughout the morning, throughout the afternoon. And it really does make this time restricted eating. Just easy. Like you just don't focus on food. You don't think about it. And then before your largest meal or your largest carb meal, you drink this fiber matrix, which is wonderful for gut health.

It also thickens up as a fiber. So when you, when it thickens up in the gut, it signals those stretch receptors in our belly. So we get fuller faster, we stay fuller longer, and it also lowers glucose and cholesterol. Overall. So. The Cleveland Clinic, which is one of the top cardiac hospitals in the nation, has done a study with our balance fiber and said that it could replace a lipid lowering med.

So that's huge in the fact that it serves as a natural  station. A natural ozempic and a natural metformin, we talked about metformin and so when you combine these two, the yerba mate tea concentrate and the fiber matrix and you combine them together, you get a really strong natural metabolic supplement that just helps.

Make these recommendations easy. So it's your willpower in a pack and it's your car blocker. And so it's a tool, it's a tool that's easily incorporated. There's no downside. There's no side effects. There's no interaction with your current meds. It's safe for kids, for pregnant, lactating women, and everybody gets a 90 day money back guarantee.

So if it's something that somebody wants to try to help them make this shift that we encourage, I think it's a fantastic way to give that kickstart into this healthy metabolic lifestyle. Yeah. And it's interesting because I'm trying it for 90 days right now, at least at the time we're talking. I can say that. 

I did, for me, the, I've progressed into different stages of the restrictive eating, trying it. And it is very helpful from that standpoint, but I'm finding my mind and concentration and focusing on energy to be very helpful and not having to depend on caffeine. It's not making me jittery because I was very apprehensive about that piece.

But that's not the case. And I share this a lot and I'll share that again. Knowing that I'm drinking something that's having all these good benefits for my body in so many ways and helping in so many ways, like for somebody with PCOS listening today, it's going to help because it's tied to insulin resistance.

So we're helping with that. And that's an underlying cause for a lot of things as we'll learn to, as we're, as I'm learning and you're sharing. So those things, just that support. And then. Since carbohydrates are always the problem, having something that not only gives me a peace of mind that helps with the absorption, but also like we've talked about before helps with our, our whole, if you want to say gut health, because that's what's going on.

And that's the reason that I started doing this. Even for me personally, taking the products. The thing I forgot to mention that's super, uber important in the, are the anti inflammatory properties of this supplement. Thank you. I cannot say enough about that. And we have seen significant improvements in skin conditions such as rosacea, eczema, psoriasis, arthritis, neuropathy, all these inflammatory things, even.

Crohn's and ulcerative colitis and diverticulitis significantly improve because you're lowering whole body inflammation. And ultimately inflammation is what kills us, like in the long run. It deteriorates, it ends our life, it shortens our life. And so any form of anti-inflammatory that you can provide is going to be beneficial.

Yes, absolutely. What we put in our bodies is key in addition to what we're doing with them. And I do want to say in the description of this episode, there'll be a link to learn more about the feel great system. And also we're adding a link to, if you want to learn more about the science behind the feel great system, because this is not something that has not been researched.

I w you know, For me, that was important to understand there's studies being done at Cleveland Clinic, but there's a call every Wednesday that we'll put a link into that you can get on to learn more if you'd like to about the science behind these products. So that's going to be included in the description.

This has been great. Thank you so much. Shannon. Oh, my pleasure. My pleasure. It's always fun to come talk about something that I'm so very passionate about. And if I can help one person, then I've served my godly purpose. Yay. Thank you. And I know that in addition to what we're putting in your body, some of you specifically, if it's not PCOS, you're struggling with back pain.

All right. Joint stiffness or muscle pain and If you're ready to get back to joining your favorite activities and you don't want to have this discomfort, I'd love to connect with you and you can reach out for a consultation call in this episode directly today or support it, movementcraft. com. And because you're a listener of the better than a pill podcast, and you're listening to this episode, you do get an exclusive discount.

So remember we release new episodes every other week on Wednesday, and I look forward to having you join me then.