Tips to Help Cure PCOS: PCOS Symptoms Checklist, Home Remedies and More

Once diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome), your instinct might be to try to find out how to cure PCOS naturally. However, there’s no medical cure for this condition yet. Surprisingly, even the causes are unknown. 

The PCOS treatment plan often focuses on managing the symptoms, so that they don’t end up getting worse or run into the risks of controlling your behaviors, emotions, and day-to-day activities. Since there isn’t any cure for PCOS, the better question might be: how to heal PCOS or curb the symptoms of PCOS through natural remedies? 

There’s no definite PCOS symptoms checklist and treatment that fits all women but one thing is for sure: making lifestyle changes and trying simple home remedies is highly effective. It not just helps keep its symptoms under control but also takes you one step closer to treating PCOS permanently. 

With that said, here are some natural ways to heal PCOS.

How to Cure PCOS Naturally: Home Remedies to Consider

Here’s everything you should know to treat PCOS naturally at home.

1. Eat a healthy diet

Believe it or not, foods play a key role in reducing the overall impact of PCOS. (Source: Medical News Today) Women with PCOS have higher insulin levels, making it hard to maintain a healthy body weight.

Blood sugar and insulin levels elevate, after a person consumes foods that are rich in sugar, carbohydrates, or both. So cut them down from your diet to help stabilize your blood sugar levels while keeping your insulin levels low. 

Make a note of the foods you should consume and not consume to keep your sugar levels under control.

• • 👉Consume foods with a low GI (Glycemic Index): When you consume low-glycemic foods, your insulin levels don’t increase as quickly as it happens with high-glycemic foods. Good examples of some low GI foods include whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, starchy vegetables, and fruits. Foods in a low GI diet include legumes, whole grains, seeds, nuts, fruits, vegetables, and any low-carb, unprocessed foods.
  • 👉Have foods that are rich in anti-inflammatory properties: The Symptoms of PCOS are often a consequence of untreated systemic inflammation and that’s why incorporating anti-inflammatory foods to your daily diet can create a whole lot of difference. Some good examples of anti-inflammatory foods include turmeric, tomatoes, oranges, bell peppers, leafy greens (spinach, collards, kale), fatty fish (salmon, tuna, sardines, mackerel), nuts (walnuts, almonds), and berries (blueberries, strawberries, cherries).
  • 👉Stay away from junk foods: Refined, processed foods like sucrose (or table sugar), refined carbs that have their healthy fibers removed, high-fructose corn syrup, processed meats (such as bacon, beef jerky, and sausage), and alcohol are deeply linked to increased inflammation levels. While cutting them off completely or going cold turkey might not be the solution. Instead, take a step-by-step approach to keep the consumption levels in moderation. Try indulging in natural foods whenever possible.

• • 👉Avoid carbs from your diet: This might mean avoiding white rice, white pasta, white bread, cookies, soda, chips, etc. Unlike simple carbs, complex carbohydrates contain natural fibers and other essential nutrients that don’t increase your blood sugar levels. A few rich sources of complex carbohydrates include: wholesome grains, whole wheat pasta, whole wheat bread, and brown rice. An ideal PCOS diet should comprise complex carbs with lots of green veggies, fruits, and lean proteins.

2. Exercise every day

This can’t be stressed enough, and it’s even more crucial for women with PCOS. Since the hormones are unbalanced, the fat begins to accumulate in the abdominal area, which easily causes weight gain. Further, it increases the risk of cardiovascular issues and type II diabetes. That’s why a combo of healthy diet and daily exercises works great in keeping everything under control. 

Exercising daily has other incredible benefits too. According to this study, exercising helps improve your mood and increases blood flow to the brain, which influences the “physiologic reactivity to your stress levels.” Exercising is great for both physical and mental well being. 

If that wasn’t enough, then read this: another study suggests that exercise “enhances menstrual and ovulation frequency” in women with PCOS. In addition, they mitigate the risks of cardiovascular diseases and improve insulin insensitivity, too. 

Here’s a list of exercises that can help ease the PCOS symptoms:

• 👉Strength training: These are ideal for reducing your insulin resistance, boosting your metabolic rate and enhancing body composition. Bodyweight exercises such as push-ups, tricep dips, and squats are a great way to improve the overall insulin function and boost your metabolism. Combining resistance with cardio is an ideal way to make sure you are building lean body muscles while helping you achieve a healthy BMI.
• 👉HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training): Ideal for decreasing waist circumference and increasing cardio fitness, HIIT involves swapping between shorter bouts of high intensity workouts and low intensity recovery. It is an effective way to boost your cardiovascular fitness, with additional advantages for PCOS. 
• 👉Cardio: These are a great way to reduce insulin resistance while boosting fertility, and stabilizing mood. Try practicing moderate exercises such as jogging, cycling, swimming, or brisk walking. These exercises increase your body’s sensitivity to insulin and reduce the risk of type II diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Just 30 minutes of these exercises a day not only helps with weight management but also improves the frequency of your ovulation and menstrual cycles.
• 👉Core strength training: Ideal for injury prevention and overall well-being, core strength training helps prepare your body for pregnancy. If you are trying to get pregnant, start training the pelvic floor muscles, as these help boost sexual health, prevent incontinence, and enhance pelvic stability to facilitate healthy pregnancy.

3. Intake of vitamins

Though being deficient in certain nutrients has a lot to do with your PCOS, that doesn’t mean you can consume anything and everything that you find in-store or online. The reason? A lot of these vitamin supplements might not be regulated by the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) and might interfere with your medications (if you’re taking them) or other medical issues. 

So make sure to speak to your doctor before taking any nutritional supplements and opt for ones that are USP and NSF certified. 

While there are multiple nutritional supplements available in the market, the most essential ones that are strongly recommended for women with PCOS are vitamin D, vitamin B, and inositol. Let’s understand each of them in detail.

• • 👉Inositol: According to this study, inositols such as myo- & d-chiro are a type of carbocyclic sugars that are naturally found in beans, fruits, nuts, grains, and meat. They are well known for their antioxidant properties. It lowers insulin levels and improves blood sugar levels. Not just that, a meta-analysis reported that inositol also helps reduce testosterone levels, and with six months of regular use, it delivers positive effects on your acne and androgen profile.

  • 👉Vitamin D: This research paper indicates that maintaining sufficient amounts of vitamin D not only helps improve menstrual regularity in women with PCOS (after three months of supplementation) but also is an ideal option to help improve fertility in women suffering from PCOS. Besides that, it also helps reduce the chances of depression too.

  • 👉Vitamin B complex: B vitamins like folate and B12 are highly helpful in healing PCOS naturally. They support in fighting insulin resistance in women with PCOS. And if you thought that’s all what they do, then you’re wrong. These water soluble vitamins come with a list of other benefits too! Say, for example, B6 aids in mood regulation (by producing the happiness hormones—dopamine and serotonin) whereas B12 aids in metabolizing and synthesizing serotonin. B12 supplements might be especially important PCOS to support the offset of metformin effects.

  • 👉Omega 3: According to pubmed, omega 3 fatty acids are rich in anti-inflammatory properties, which helps in treating autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. In fact, placebo-controlled clinical trials of fish oils via supplementation demonstrated that Omega 3s provide “significant benefit” when compared to placebo, resulting in lower disease activity and decreased use of anti-inflammatory drugs. We know the general benefits of Omega 3s but ever wondered how it manages PCOS symptoms? Based on this meta-analysis, Omega 3 fatty acids help in fighting not only insulin resistance but also treating elevated levels of TC (Total Cholesterol) in the blood. Some natural sources of omega 3s are fish (mackerel, herring, salmon), plant oils (flaxseed oil, walnut oil, canola oil), and nuts (flaxseeds, chia seeds, walnuts).

  • 👉Magnesium: This nutrient is a crucial cofactor of multiple enzymes involved in metabolizing glucose, and it’s often seen that individuals with Type II Diabetes tend to have decreased levels of magnesium, which leads to insulin resistance and cardiovascular diseases. That’s why fortifying your body with adequate amounts of magnesium is vital and good food sources include cashews, spinach, pumpkin seeds, whole grains, and almonds. Generally, seeds, nuts, legumes, and beans are rich in magnesium, so don’t hesitate to try a few more varieties.

  • 👉Zinc: This is an important micro element that’s responsible for hormone release, cell growth, immunological response, and reproduction. Since women with PCOS have lower zinc levels, they may see impaired lipid, hormonal, and glucose metabolism. Not just that, there might be high concentrations of oxidative stress biomarkers. This study reported that zinc helps in lipid balance and insulin resistance. Additionally, when dosed during and before every menstrual cycle, it might even lower the intensity of menstrual pain. That’s why adding zinc to your diet makes sense. Besides that, zinc helps reduce inflammation, prevent hair loss, fight acne, and protect against other chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. 

Final Words

You can easily control the symptoms of PCOS and prevent them from worsening by taking care of your diet and exercise routine. Following a holistic treatment plan helps cure PCOS permanently. 

Since PCOS is a hormonal condition, consulting a good nutritionist to understand how your body reacts to high androgen levels makes sense. Make necessary lifestyle changes and bring a balance.