Saturday, November 26, 2005

Tastes Like Insulin

Here's a little idea of what a great state your body & mind might be in if all the food sold to you wasn't pumped full of sugar:

Recently, a friend's girlfriend was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). The medication she had just finished had had an impact on some of her hormone levels & sparked this condition. It's not super-serious, but if left untreated, can have irreversible long-term effects. The doctors suggested starting the medication again to solve the problem, but this seemed like a band-aid solution: eventually she will want to end the medication again & the problem will just have to be dealt with then... & will concievably be more difficult to solve after spending more time on the drug.

So, after some looking into causes & relations to PCOS, she decided that insulin resistance, caused by repeated intake of high sugar foods, was contributing to the syndrome. She decided not to go on any medication for the syndrome, and instead cut out high sugar (& other high insulin-response inducing foods), started taking fish oil supplements (which decrease insulin resistance), and started exercising regularly (which also decreases insulin resistance).

Within the month her symptoms of PCOS had vanished.

I believe that much of our health focus is misguided, and I hope over the next several years we're able to see more research into the benefits that proper exercise & nutrition can provide.

The support this story gives is only anecdotal, but I think it's a demonstration that combined properly, lifstyle changes can have absolutely drug-like effects.