Dr. Nancy Lonsdorf, an integrative physician and recognized Ayurvedic expert, board-certified in Integrative and Holistic Medicine (ABIHM) explains Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and how to support naturally.

As many as one in ten women today have a condition called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. This syndrome includes three factors: irregular periods, imbalance in hormones — which includes too much testosterone or testosterone-like effects such as acne, and excess of hair growth or hair loss — and thirdly it involves the formation of little cysts on the ovaries. Sometimes they may not be so little. In fact, I had a patient I treated a few years ago who was 31 years old, and she had been to the emergency room three times in the past year-and-a-half because those cysts would get so big they would suddenly rupture and she would have extreme pain and have to go to the emergency room. When she came to me she said, “I really don’t want to go through that again. What can you do?” From a modern medical point of view, perhaps not much that would prevent that, but from an Ayurvedic point of view — Ayurveda being the natural health system of India — we have an understanding of this imbalance that is there in the hormones as well as the formation of cysts as involving factors we can influence through a woman's diet, herbs and lifestyle.

In fact, modern medicine is also recognizing the impact of diet, and it's calling this condition a metabolic malady. That means that not only are the reproductive hormones out of balance, but it's been discovered that metabolism in general is out of balance; particularly difficulty with handling sugar and carbohydrates. In fact, these women often have pre-diabetic signs of insulin resistance; they have an increased risk of heart disease and also of diabetes and uterine cancer. So, it's really important to balance the whole system, not just treat it as if it were irregular periods and give a birth control pill, for example. It actually is of genetic origin, probably, but as with most genetic conditions, we've learned, they can be influenced greatly by epigenetic factors such as our diet and our lifestyle.

So in this case I looked at this lady’s overall diet and health, and we saw that she was really having a lot of carbohydrates and quite a bit of sugar binges, so we cut that out immediately. I gave her an herbal program that was very tailored to what I found in her pulse — which is the Ayurvedic way of understanding a person’s individuality and what is out of balance and causing the symptoms in them — and also I put her on a regimen of boiled hot water — which anybody can do — that helps to open the channels of the body, helps to flush out the impurities, promote good bowel movements, and good cleansing from the intestines. From the Ayurvedic point of view our metabolism of hormones is also influenced by our liver — conventional medicine would say that also — as well as the elimination through the bowels. Otherwise hormones can get reabsorbed; we want those waste hormones to go out of the body and not build up in the system.

Disclaimer
The sole purpose of these videos is to provide information about the tradition of ayurveda. This information is not intended for use in the diagnosis, treatment, cure or prevention of any disease. If you have any serious acute or chronic health concern, please consult a trained health professional who can fully assess your needs and address them effectively. If you are seeking the medical advice of a trained ayurvedic expert, call or e-mail us for the number of a physician in your area.

Check with your doctor before taking herbs during pregnancy or taking herbs once you become pregnant.

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