Dietary Interventions for PCOS: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Before we dive right into dietary management strategies for PCOS, let’s get one thing straight. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to treating/managing PCOS. 

What works for one person may not work for another. You are your own unique person both genetically and microbiologically, as well as emotionally and spiritually. 

This uniqueness can greatly impact the way you respond to certain environmental changes, such as diet changes, so personalizing your approach to finding a healthy, sustainable eating pattern is essential. You need something that will work for your personal preferences and beliefs, concurrent medical issues, health goals, activity level, and other factors.1

That being said, there are some overall patterns of eating that have shown to be helpful for most women with PCOS and making dietary adjustments based on these patterns and principles is a great way to start finding an eating pattern that will work for you. 

In this blog post, we’re going to look at some of the best nutrition patterns, as shown by science, for managing PCOS. 

We’ll also take a peek at some of the common recommendations made on social media that don’t have much scientific support, and explore why these dietary interventions seem to work so well for some and not for others. 

So, let’s dive in! 

Do Women with PCOS Eat Differently? 

This may seem like an odd question, but when you consider that PCOS is basically a hormonal disruption and that many of our food choices are driven by hormones, it seems more legitimate to ask this. So let’s ask it! Do they? 

Actually, yes. 

Studies show that women with PCOS tend to eat diets with more high-glycemic foods, fewer legumes, and fewer vegetables than women without PCOS.2,3

Based on this information, we can conclude that women with PCOS are probably craving more simple carbohydrates. This is consistent with decreased insulin sensitivity, a condition that affects approximately 75% of lean women with PCOS and 95% of overweight and obese women with PCOS.

Should Women with PCOS Change the Way They Eat?

This is a loaded question. Telling a person they should or should not do something assumes a certain degree of uniformity among people, and it also assumes that the person in question is behaving in a way that needs to be amended. 

The truth is that most women with PCOS would benefit from some simple dietary changes, but the extent of the changes needed depends on the individual, not simply on her diagnosis. 

And it’s also important to say that many women with PCOS are very restrictive in their food choices, which can increase physical stress, which can also drive PCOS symptoms. 

Some women need a more regulated diet, and some need a more liberalized diet. The person who can determine this best is the woman herself. So, don’t assume that “dietary changes” automatically means more restrictions, because it might actually mean more freedoms! 

Studies have shown that while there’s no one diet that works best for all women with PCOS, there are certain dietary patterns/factors that can help most women with this disorder.1 

These dietary patterns include choosing low glycemic-index foods, staying within a low-moderate carbohydrate eating pattern, following a heart healthy diet, getting lots of fiber, prioritizing fruits, vegetables and legumes, reducing processed and sugary foods, and timing meals appropriately during the day.1

Dietary Patterns for PCOS

Let’s look at some eating patterns that have proven beneficial for women with PCOS when studied in randomized controlled trials. 

These kinds of trials, or tests, remove bias from the equation and allow researchers to gain a clearer picture of how the diet affected the study participants.

1. Low Glycemic-Index Diet

The Low Glycemic-Index Diet or Low GI Diet has proven beneficial for many women with PCOS.1,4

You may be wondering what exactly the glycemic index is and why it matters. Well, the glycemic index is a measure of how quickly a carbohydrate food spikes blood glucose levels. Higher numbers refer to fast, high spikes, and lower numbers correlate with longer, gentler rises in blood glucose. 

In a Low GI diet, a person chooses most of their carbohydrate foods from among those that cause the lowest spike in blood glucose, thereby reducing the impact of glucose on the blood and pancreas and allowing insulin to do its job more gradually. 

Low GI foods provide a steadier, more constant stream of glucose (aka energy) to the cells without overwhelming them.1

Studies have shown that Low GI diets can be very effective at helping to manage insulin resistance, and since insulin resistance is a common condition/antagonist of PCOS, this pattern of eating can be quite helpful.

In fact, one study found that women with PCOS consuming a low GI diet had more than three times as many ovulatory cycles as compared to women with PCOS who were consuming a standard GI diet.5

6 This image shows the difference in blood glucose spikes between different levels of GI rankings. 

Check out this article to learn more about Low GI eating patterns. 

2. The Ketogenic Diet

There is some buzz in the PCOS community about a recent study that showed the Ketogenic Diet to be a very beneficial way of eating for women with PCOS. 

For those who may be unfamiliar with the Ketogenic Diet, it’s a high fat, low carb, low-moderate protein diet that has been used successfully in a variety of clinical settings including childhood epilepsy and some cases of diabetes. 

A traditional Ketogenic Diet is extremely limiting and most pop-culture keto diets are much more forgiving both in terms of carbs and of protein. 

The study in question was published in 2020 and it showed significant improvements in metabolic markers for overweight women with PCOS after 12 weeks on the diet.7

Fans of the Ketogenic Diet have been all about sharing that keto lifestyle with the PCOS community since the publication of this research…but there’s a catch. 

The diet in this study was a modified Ketogenic/Mediterranean diet and each participant was also regularly given herbal supplements to help negate the side effects of the diet such as nausea and bad breath.7

Some of the herbs they were given have been shown, in other studies, to exert positive effects in the hormonal and metabolic parameters of women with PCOS. So was the success of this study from the diet or the supplements? We just don’t know.

Also something to be aware of, this diet emphasized healthy fat, and the average Keto Diet just wants fat, ANY fat. The thing is that saturated and processed fats are very inflammatory, while monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are anti-inflammatory. This study chose to emphasize the anti-inflammatory fats.7

Because this study provided so many changes at once to a small group of women, and because it didn't have a control group to compare them to, it’s not a very good study to use as a recommendation for lifestyle changes.7

That said, if you want to try the Ketogenic Diet for your PCOS and you have a plan to go about it healthfully, more power to you. 

3. Moderate Carbohydrate Diet

A Moderate Carbohydrate Diet (MC Diet) has also proven to be quite effective helping to manage insulin resistance as well as other PCOS markers.1,4,8

One study provided women with either a standard diet with a macronutrient breakdown of 55% carbohydrate, 27% fat, and 18% protein or an MC Diet with a macronutrient breakdown of 41% carbohydrate, 40% fat, and 19% protein.1,8

The results were in favor of the MC diet with a 27% decrease in fasting insulin and a 23% decrease in testosterone.1,8

There have been other studies on the effects of carbohydrates on PCOS and the diets that resulted in significant improvements for women with PCOS range anywhere from 30-60% of daily calories from carbs.1 So, feel free to tweak the ratios to best suit your body and lifestyle. Just be sure to keep your protein at at least 18% or higher and make sure your fats are mostly unsaturated.  

Lesson here, healthy carbs are good for you and can be part of a helpful, therapeutic diet. Yay carbs! 

4. DASH Diet

DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension and is a whole-foods diet that is low in salt and saturated fat, but high in fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. 

This diet was developed to manage hypertension (high blood pressure) and cardiovascular disease. But, research has shown that the diet actually helps with many factors involved in PCOS.1 

One study compared the efficacy of the DASH diet in women with PCOS to a standard diet with the same daily calories and macronutrient breakdown, but without the emphasis on fruit, veg, low fat dairy, and lack of processed, sugary foods.9

This study found that the DASH diet resulted in more weight loss, and higher levels of sex hormone binding globluin (SHBG).9 SHBG helps women to keep testosterone levels lower by grabbing and binding free testosterone when there’s too much of it. 

You can find out more about the DASH diet here

5. Other Diets

There are other diets that may help with PCOS, including the Mediterranean Diet, a High Fiber Diet, and a Whole-Foods Plant-Based Diet.1

All these diets emphasize fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds. They limit processed foods, red meats, dairy products, and sugars. And, they are all full of antioxidants, phytonutrients, fiber, and anti-inflammatory foods that promote good health. 

Any diet that can provide lots of high quality foods like these will likely be helpful in managing your PCOS.

The key to choosing a diet is that it must be sustainable in the long term. PCOS is driven by hormones and hormones are really slow drivers.1

If you want to help your body by making dietary changes, you may have to stick to your changes for several months, or even a year, before you begin to see real benefits. (We know. Just what you wanted to hear.)

This means you must choose to eat in a way that fits well with your food preferences and lifestyle. If that’s a vegan diet, go for it! But, for most of us, it will probably be a Moderate Carbohydrate diet with an emphasis on unsaturated fats, vegetarian protein and/or fish, lots of fruits and vegetables, and the permission to occasionally deviate from the norm to enjoy some birthday cake or holiday pie. 

I Heard That This Was Something I Had to Do

There are a lot of dietary suggestions out there that YouTubers, Instagrammers, and Bloggers promote as necessary for women with PCOS who want to improve their health and reduce their symptoms. 

Some of these methods are helpful, some are not, and some are only helpful for a select few, even though they’re promoted as being helpful for all women with PCOS. 

In this section, we’ll discuss a couple of common “musts” that aren’t necessarily as imperative as they’re made out to be.  

1. “You Have to Do Intermittent Fasting” 

We are aware that a lot of people who are trying to manage their weight turn to intermittent fasting, and this can work well for many people. But, it’s not a method we’d recommend to most women with PCOS for a couple reasons. 

The first reason is that most people who follow an intermittent fasting lifestyle tend to eat most of their food at the end of the day, but recent research has suggested that this may be counterproductive.1,10

To illustrate this point, let’s take a peek at a study that examined the relationship between the time of day calories are eaten and the metabolic outcomes these patterns elicit in women with PCOS. 

This study recruited 60 lean women with PCOS. They put all the women on a diet with the exact same number of daily calories, but they separated the women into two groups based on when during the day they got most of their calories. The 30 women in Group A received 980 calories at breakfast, 640 calories at lunch, and 190 calories at dinner. Those in Group B received 190 calories at breakfast, 640 calories at lunch, and 980 calories at dinner.1,10

Most people’s eating pattern more closely resembles group B. 

The study found that the participants in group A had much better metabolic markers after completing the diet than group B did.1,10

Just from eating their calories mostly in the morning, Group A saw a 7% improvement in blood glucose and a 54% improvement in insulin. Group A also saw their testosterone levels decrease by 50% and their levels of SHBG increase by 105%! Group B didn’t see any of these beneficial changes.1,10

Breakfast is the new dinner, people! 

The second reason we recommend caution is that depriving yourself of food for a large portion of the day may exacerbate your carbohydrate cravings and lead to poor food choices and binging. Since women with PCOS are already susceptible to both of these things because of their hormones, intermittent fasting may not be the healthiest option. 

With that said, if you want to try intermittent fasting to improve your PCOS, go right ahead, but we strongly encourage you to eat your food in the morning hours rather than in the evening if you want to see results. And remember, you’re gonna have to work extra hard to fight the power…of your hormones telling you to eat all the carbs now!

 2. “You Have to Eliminate Dairy and/or Gluten” 

Do all women with PCOS need to eliminate dairy and gluten from their diets?

No. 

A PCOS-friendly diet does not need to be dairy and/or gluten free. 

If you know someone, or have heard of someone, who benefited from eliminating dairy and gluten from their diet and you’d like to try it too, then by all means, go for it! But if you want to keep those foods in your diet and you tolerate them well, don’t feel pressured to give them up. 

There’s not much research on the effects of including or excluding either dairy or gluten in a PCOS-friendly diet. 

Most of the evidence to suggest people should avoid these foods is anecdotal, meaning it’s just word-of-mouth testimony from individuals who have experienced good things from cutting them out. 

While we’re very happy that these women have found relief from their PCOS symptoms by eliminating dairy/gluten from their diets, it’s a little hasty to assume that all women with PCOS will benefit in the same way. 

Let us explain. 

The likely reason that many women benefit from cutting out wheat and/or dairy products, is that they have a sensitivity to them. 

Food sensitivities are different from food allergies in that they’re not overtly dangerous, but they do still cause an inflammatory response.11

One link between food sensitivities and PCOS is inflammation. We know that women with PCOS have increased levels of inflammation, and we also know that food sensitivities can increase inflammation.1,11

Managing inflammation is a key part of managing PCOS, so discovering any food sensitivities and eliminating those foods from your diet can be a good place to start in creating an individualized PCOS-friendly diet. 

Figuring out food sensitivities can be tricky though, because it can take days, or even weeks, after a food is eaten before a physical symptom is experienced.11

Dairy and wheat are among the top allergens in the world and many people who eat them are sensitive to them and don’t know it.11

Other foods that are common allergens include: soy, nuts, eggs, fish, shellfish, sesame, and peanuts.12 But most people don’t just give up these foods without checking to see if they are actually sensitive to them. We recommend the same course of action for dairy and gluten.

Common symptoms of food sensitivities and intolerances include digestive problems like constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating, and stomach cramps. Other symptoms include rashes, hives, eczema, migraines, excess mucus production, joint pain and fatigue.11

But remember, those symptoms listed above can take a long time after ingestion before they show up in the body, so figuring out food sensitivities can be really tricky.11

To help you figure out if you have any food sensitivities, we recommend starting with keeping a food and symptom diary that will help you figure out if certain foods are causing problems hours or days later. 

Another option is to get an allergy test and make sure your healthcare provider knows you’re looking for sensitivities, not just overt allergies.

The Short, Sweet Version

Overall, the tips for a healthy PCOS diet are to follow an MC diet, include lots of fruits and vegetables, get plenty of fiber, limit processed and sugary foods, and choose an eating pattern that will work for you in the long term. 

Eating most of your foods earlier in the day may be quite helpful as opposed to eating the bulk of your calories in the evening. 

And, you can try eliminating certain foods if you think that you may be sensitive to them, but you don’t need to cut out foods just because other people have had success doing so. 

Questions

Did you like the dietary management strategies in this blog? What is one strategy that stood out to you in a good way? Find us on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok! 

In parting, remember that eating healthy, whole foods, and lots of plant foods is one of the simplest, safest, and most effective things we can do to promote good health in our bodies. As with every preventative/restorative measure though, sometimes these changes alone are not enough to help our bodies function the way we want or need them to. If you are struggling with health problems, please contact your doctor or other healthcare provider such a Naturopath, Dietitian, or Mental Health Professional to see if they can offer appropriate guidance and care. We at Wholesome Story believe that healthy communities require community effort, so we advise you to keep your healthcare community aware and involved in your journey as you pursue better health.

1. Groves Azarro M. Polycystic ovary syndrome: Managing insulin resistance with diet and lifestyle. EatRightStore. https://www.eatrightstore.org/dpg-products/difm/polycystic-ovary-syndrome-managing-insulin-resistance-with-diet-and-lifestyle. Published 2020. Accessed August 31, 2022. 
2. Shishehgar F, Ramezani Tehrani F, Mirmiran P, Hajian S, Baghestani AR, Moslehi N. Comparison of dietary intake between polycystic ovary syndrome women and controls. Global journal of health science. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5064084/#:~:text=The%20results%20demonstrated%20that%20energy,p%3D0.037. Published September 1, 2016. Accessed August 31, 2022. 
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5. Sordia-Hernández LH;Ancer Rodríguez P;Saldivar Rodriguez D;Trejo Guzman S;Servín Zenteno ES;Guerrero González G;Ibarra Patiño R; Effect of a low glycemic diet in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome and anovulation - a randomized controlled trial. Clinical and experimental obstetrics & gynecology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29734548/. Published 2016. Accessed August 31, 2022. 
6. Know Diabetes UK. Glycaemic index | know diabetes. Know Diabetes. https://www.knowdiabetes.org.uk/be-healthier/eat-better/glycaemic-index/. Published 2022. Accessed August 31, 2022. 
7. Paoli A, Mancin L, Giacona MC, Bianco A, Caprio M. Effects of a ketogenic diet in overweight women with polycystic ovary syndrome. Journal of translational medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7045520/. Published February 27, 2020. Accessed August 31, 2022. 
8. Gower BA, Chandler-Laney PC, Ovalle F, et al. Favourable metabolic effects of a eucaloric lower-carbohydrate diet in women with PCOS. Clinical endocrinology. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4111472/. Published October 2013. Accessed August 31, 2022. 
9. Azadi-Yazdi M;Karimi-Zarchi M;Salehi-Abargouei A;Fallahzadeh H;Nadjarzadeh A; Effects of dietary approach to stop hypertension diet on androgens, antioxidant status and body composition in overweight and obese women with polycystic ovary syndrome: A randomised controlled trial. Journal of human nutrition and dietetics : the official journal of the British Dietetic Association. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28466507/. Published 2017. Accessed August 31, 2022. 
10. O; JDBMWJF. Effects of caloric intake timing on insulin resistance and hyperandrogenism in lean women with polycystic ovary syndrome. Clinical science (London, England : 1979). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23688334/. Published 2013. Accessed August 31, 2022. 
11. Henry Ford Health Staff. Is it a food allergy, food sensitivity, food intolerance or celiac disease? Henry Ford LiveWell. https://www.henryford.com/blog/2020/11/is-it-a-food-allergy-food-sensitivity-food-intolerance-or-celiac-disease#:~:text=What%20it%20is%3A%20When%20a,constipation%2C%20diarrhea%20and%20migraine%20headaches. Published 2020. Accessed August 31, 2022. 
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