December 10th, 2008
By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD
Toronto Sun.com
Dec. 10, 2008
Thanks to support of Sun readers, Scarborough mom dares leave her house after 17 years of hiding away.
When she walked through the doors at the Sun, I didn’t recognize her.
Stephanie had changed beyond recognition. And not just on the outside.
When I first wrote about her back in May, Stephanie had been virtually house-bound for 17 years.
The Scarborough mother of four suffers from a medical condition that causes extreme hirsutism.
When I interviewed her in May, Stephanie, 35, had a full beard.
She suffers from polycystic ovarian syndrome, a hormonal illness characterized by irregular or no periods, acne, obesity, and excess hair growth.
Women with PCOS are at a higher risk for obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and uterine cancer. There is no cure.
Some women have a very mild form of the condition. Stephanie has the acute version.
As she told me, tearfully, at the time, she wouldn’t even go to events at her children’s school. Kids can be cruel and she feared her youngsters would be teased because of her appearance.
Stephanie first contacted me when I wrote about the government funding sex change operations.
Her young life had been destroyed by her medical condition, yet OHIP wouldn’t pay the estimated $6,000 in laser hair removal treatment she needed. She tried painful bleaching, waxing, shaving and other methods. They simply made it worse.
I was overwhelmed by the response of my readers. Support, and offers of cash came from right across the province. Barbara Harrison from the Spa Club in Ottawa contacted me to offer Stephanie free laser hair removal treatment.
She has now started that treatment with Kim Duignan at the Spa Club branch in Pickering. They have provided free treatments every week since June.
Now she is transformed. She’s all smiles and no longer hides behind long hair. She was even brave enough to pose for Sun photographer Alex Urosevic.
With stories like this, it’s usual to have “before” and “after” pictures. We have no before pics, because Stephanie wouldn’t have her photo taken “before”.
The only photograph we had of her was taken 20 years ago. Her hair is now in a stylish bob.
“I cut my hair. For me that was a part of hiding my face. I kept it long for all these years, so this is a huge, big deal,” she explained.
Eight months ago she wouldn’t answer the doorbell. Last week, she had enough confidence to attend a family wedding. This summer, she took the kids to the zoo.
Her oldest son is playing guitar in his school’s Christmas concert. For the first time, Stephanie plans to attend. From now on, she will go to all the concerts.
So far, Stephanie has had 17 laser hair removal treatments. By October, she could see they were working.
“The women at the Spa Club are the most beautiful women — inside and out,” Stephanie told me.
“These people are so compassionate, so understanding. They have seen me at my worst and they can’t believe that the government wouldn’t help me.”
Stephanie emphasizes there are other women out there who have the same condition. None get help from OHIP to deal with this heartbreaking syndrome that makes life so unbearable for them.
Stephanie is getting by with help from family and friends who’ve stuck by her. One picks her up and takes her to Pickering every week, another takes her out to lunch.
Her youngest son, Lucas, likes to stroke her soft face.
Now Stephanie wants to get her life back to normal. She’s looking for work. She wants to play hockey.
“I don’t want to look like a movie star,” she told me back in May. “I just want to be normal.”
Thanks to the Spa Club and the outpouring of support from Sun readers, she’s getting her wish.
“You gave me this opportunity and I am not going to blow it,” she said.
At this time of year, we all make lists and check them twice. We throng the malls looking for just the right gift. For Stephanie, the greatest gift was simply to be able to go shopping, without people staring.
Sometimes, the greatest gifts, are the simplest things of all.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/christina_blizzard/2008/12/10/7692091-sun.html
December 9th, 2008
By David Douglas
Reuters Health Information
In women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), obstructive sleep apnea is associated with insulin resistance, glucose intolerance and type 2 diabetes, according to a study from the University of Chicago.
“Our findings,” investigator Dr. David A. Ehrmann told Reuters Health, “suggest that the metabolic disturbances seen commonly among women with PCOS are due, at least in part, to the effects of sleep disordered breathing.”
“In the absence of obstructive sleep apnea,” he added, “metabolic disturbances in PCOS are modest and are not significantly different from those seen among obese women without PCOS.”
In the October issue of the Journal of Clinical and Endocrinological Metabolism, Dr. Ehrmann and colleagues describe their prospective study of 52 women with PCOS and 21 comparable women without the disorder.
With polysomnography, the team diagnosed obstructive sleep apnea in 29 women with PCOS (56%) and 4 controls (19%). After adjustment for risk factors, the PCOS patients with sleep apnea were more insulin resistant than those without apnea. Further, impaired glucose tolerance was observed in 16 of the 29 women (55%) with PCOS and sleep apnea versus only 6 of the 23 (26%) PCOS patients without sleep apnea.
“Insulin resistance and glucose tolerance were highly correlated with the presence and severity of obstructive sleep apnea,” the authors report.
They also found that in PCOS patients with normal glucose tolerance, sleep apnea was associated with an almost twofold higher fasting insulin level and homeostatic model assessment (HOMA) index.
Moreover, the severity of sleep apnea was a highly significant predictor of the fasting concentrations of glucose and insulin as well as 2-hour glucose concentration and HOMA index.
Dr. Ehrmann’s team is now “actively engaged in clinical studies designed to determine the direction of causality between obstructive sleep apnea and the metabolic disturbances characteristic of PCOS.”
J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2008;93:3878-3884.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/584868?src=rss
December 4th, 2008
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YOUR WEEKLY PCOS HEALTH TIP FROM INSULITE
Committed to helping you feel better
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EAT SLOWLY … AND CONTROL WEIGHT
How we eat can be just as important as what we eat, which is essential for women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome to bear in mind because a dual approach helps better management of weight problems. This is especially true if stress is a symptom of your PCOS.
The brain takes 20 minutes to sense fullness and fast eaters tend to eat more than necessary as a result, often because they feel stressed.
So don’t rush a series of quick bites in the kitchen but instead sit down at the dinner table, eat slowly and savor the tastes in each forkful. You’ll end up feeling satisfied after consuming much less food.
Tip: Pay attention to why you’re eating. It may be out of genuine hunger. But it could be simply because you’re lonely, bored or anxious. Make a ritual of a meal and you may well find you have a new way of staying calm and balanced.
For much more information about Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and how you can better manage or even reverse the symptoms, visit our web site by clicking on:
If you have a pressing PCOS issue, our web site can show you how to contact our Consulting & Advisory Teams for a free consultation.
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Sign up for Insulite’s Weekly PCOS Health Tips at www.pcos.insulitelabs.com
December 2nd, 2008
By Karen Collins, MS, RD, CDN, American Institute for Cancer Research
MSN Health and Fitness
Dec. 2, 2008
Five issues that impact your ability to get pregnant
More than 15 percent of women may have difficulty becoming pregnant at some point during their lifetime. The term infertility is used when pregnancy does not occur after at least one year of trying. Since infertility affects about 7.3 million couples in the U.S., interest is growing in how diet and lifestyle might affect fertility.
About a third of infertility cases are attributed to the male partner, a third to the female and a third to a combination of both partners (or no cause is found). Male infertility is usually attributed to an insufficient healthy sperm count. Women with infertility can trace their issues to a number of different causes: problems with the structure of the uterus, blocked fallopian tubes or, most often, failure to release healthy eggs.
Several diet and lifestyle issues may also have an effect. Here’s a list of the most common:
Weight
A woman’s weight can affect her fertility. In fact, weight issues account for about 12 percent of all infertility, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Too little body fat reduces estrogen levels so much that the reproductive cycle starts to shut down. Too much body fat raises estrogen levels, acting like birth control pills to suppress ovulation (egg release). Obesity is even linked with decreased success of fertility treatments.
And women aren’t the only ones whose fertility is threatened by excess weight. Several studies link excess weight in men with decreased semen and increased production of abnormal sperm. Some researchers suggest that eating plenty of vegetables and fruits, which provide antioxidants to prevent damage to sperm, may protect men’s fertility. But overall, research results have been very mixed.
Polycystic ovarian syndrome
PCOS is an endocrine disorder and the most common reason for infertility due to lack of ovulation. In women with the disorder, insulin and reproductive hormones are at abnormal levels, and egg production and menstrual cycles often halt. Besides infertility, PCOS is linked with greater risk of developing diabetes, heart disease and some types of cancer. Fortunately, a modest weight loss of about five percent is often enough to normalize hormones and improve fertility. Regular physical activity seems important as well, and a diet that includes more dietary fiber and whole grains may also help.
Anemia
A lack of healthy red blood cells is linked with female infertility, caused by both lack of iron or inadequate vitamin B-12 or folate. Although more research is needed in this area, women can avoid most anemias through a healthy diet. To start, make sure to get enough folate by eating plenty of vegetables, beans and grains–both whole grains and enriched grains. If you don’t eat animal products (including dairy) make sure to get adequate vitamin B-12 from fortified foods or supplements.
Diet
Overall balanced eating habits may also help with infertility. One large study involving over 17,000 nurses reported that women who follow healthy eating practices experienced up to 66 percent lower risk of infertility due to ovulation problems. The women who benefitted had a diet high in healthy monounsaturated fat (found in olive oil and nuts, for example), low in trans fat and rich in vegetable-based protein and whole-grain foods. These eating habits may help by promoting normal insulin levels and by providing a variety of antioxidants that could promote and protect pregnancy.
Tobacco
Tobacco use threatens both male and female fertility. It makes a woman’s eggs more prone to genetic abnormalities and has been linked with abnormal sperm, decreased sperm and impaired sperm movement. Nicotine and other chemicals can also affect ovulation by decreasing estrogen.
One note of caution: We must be careful when interpreting results from many of these studies, since observational data can only speak to associations between various diet and lifestyle choices and fertility, not causation.
Karen Collins, D.C.N., M.S., R.D., serves as the nutrition advisor to the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR). Karen writes two syndicated weekly columns, “Nutrition Notes” and “Nutrition-Wise,” distributed by AICR. Karen was an expert reviewer for AICR’s landmark international report, “Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective,” which provides recommendations based on an examination of more than 7,000 research studies by a panel of internationally renowned scientists.
http://health.msn.com/pregnancy/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100227179>1=31036
