She has a track to her pod cast up, but it's currently linking to her previous podcast regarding thyroid disorders, it's worth a listen. Unless they get the track/pod changed by the time you listen to it, then enjoy what the gluten podcast is about!
However Amy has written two posts regarding PCOS and Gluten.
Go Gluten-Free for PCOS part 1
I found the most interesting part of her post to be "A review paper in The New England Journal of Medicine listed 55 “diseases” that can be caused by eating gluten. Here are some health issues that may be caused or aggravated by gluten – diarrhea, gas, bloating, nausea, constipation, inability to lose weight, chronic sinus problems, snoring, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, reflux, cancer, depression, skin disorders, osteoporosis, diabetes or hypothyroidism, autoimmune diseases, infertility, tingling numbness in the legs, sores inside the mouth, hives, joint/muscle pains and aches.(1)"
I used to experience what some might call "circus tummy", constantly nauseated. Conpstipation, difficulty losing weight, which was more likely from the hypothyroidism. OH! And of course the hypothyroidism, itself.
So maybe I'm eating more for a hypothyroid diet, but as I said yesterday...what came first the chicken or the egg, the PCOS of the HYPOTHYROID? Who knows.
All I can tell you for sure is that for me after eliminating large amounts of processed foods, many containing gluten, and gluten containing foods, that I haven't felt "sick" in quite some time.
For part 2 of her Go Gluten-Free for PCOS click here.
A couple years ago I was desperate for answers for some really nagging health questions I had, but in an effort to get a jump start on my health I went ahead and made the decision to cut out gluten. Which, in retrospect--I should have done an allergy test first but I guess I just wasn't willing to wait.
I just decided it wouldn't hurt anything to try it. Now if I were to go back, I would more than likely get a false positive on being allergic to gluten.
The Food Allergy and Research program at University of Nebraska at Lincoln states that "celiac disease is a distinct reaction to a protein fraction called gluten, which is found in wheat and related cereals such as barely, rye, and oats." (Huh! Oats! Good thing I buy the gluten free kind!) PCOS diva states "You can still have gluten intolerance without a diagnosis of celiac disease and this new research proves them wrong. Celiac disease results when the body creates antibodies against the wheat (adaptive immunity), but another kind of gluten sensitivity results from a generalized activated immune system" (innate immunity). (7)
"When you have gluten intolerance your body does not absorb fat soluble vitamins such as vitamin A and E and K as efficiently as well as the essential fatty acids. EFA’s are critical for women with PCOS because we use these to make all our reproductive hormones and adrenal hormones including estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, cortisol and DHEA. Other nutritional deficiencies include a calcium, folic acid, iron and vitamin B12 (which may already be low due to taking Metformin."
On the flip side of this case though is a new study that says, gluten intolerance, is no longer a thing.
Subjects would be provided with every single meal for the duration of the trial. Any and all potential dietary triggers for gastrointestinal symptoms would be removed, including lactose (from milk products), certain preservatives like benzoates, propionate, sulfites, and nitrites, and fermentable, poorly absorbed short-chain carbohydrates, also known as FODMAPs. And last, but not least, nine days worth of urine and faecal matter would be collected. With this new study, Gibson wasn’t messing around.
The subjects cycled through high-gluten, low-gluten, and no-gluten (placebo) diets, without knowing which diet plan they were on at any given time. In the end, all of the treatment diets - even the placebo diet - caused pain, bloating, nausea, and gas to a similar degree. It didn’t matter if the diet contained gluten. (Read more about the study.)
"In contrast to our first study… we could find absolutely no specific response to gluten," Gibson wrote in the paper. A third, larger study published this month has confirmed the findings.
It seems to be a 'nocebo' effect - the self-diagnosed gluten sensitive patients expected to feel worse on the study diets, so they did. They were also likely more attentive to their intestinal distress, since they had to monitor it for the study.
On top of that, these other potential dietary triggers - specifically the FODMAPS - could be causing what people have wrongly interpreted as gluten sensitivity. FODMAPS are frequently found in the same foods as gluten. That still doesn’t explain why people in the study negatively reacted to diets that were free of all dietary triggers.
While the information between Poly Cystic Ovaries and gluten is little-to-none, the best we can do for our ourselves is to clean up our diets essentially. Top tip though? If you do decide to try a gluten-free diet, don't start eating gluten-free junk food though either! It's still junk food! Don't kid yourselves.
(1) http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra010852
(7) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21392369
Blessings,
A
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