How to Treat PCOS and Ovarian Cysts Naturally | Dr. Josh Axe

Hey guys, Dr. Josh Axe here. Welcome to Ancient Medicine Today. On today's topic, I'm going to be going through how to naturally heal PCOS and ovarian cysts. And this is an issue that a lot of women specifically deal with on a regular basis.

And I would say, I would estimate, and I've seen these numbers, that almost 25% of women have some type of ovarian cyst or cysts that are causing hormonal imbalance So on this video today, I'm going to be talking about the best diet, the best supplements, the best essential oils, and lifestyle changes and natural treatments you can follow to help get rid of ovarian cysts fast.

So we'll dive right in here today. Also, I want to mention for all of you watching live right now, I want to say I know that we've got people jumping on from all over the world right now, from Australia, from California, from— Florida. From England. And if you are watching this live right now, do me a favor, take a minute and punch that share button.

Let's help spread the word that food is medicine because there are millions of women today suffering with PCOS, ovarian cysts, infertility, other forms of hormone imbalance. And if they learn these truths, it's going to radically transform their life. All right, let's dive in. Let's first talk about what not to do. To help get rid of ovarian cysts. Now, number 1 here is remove sugar.

Now, when you get too much sugar in your diet, sugar can act as an estrogen booster. So it can start to increase the amount of estrogen in your body and decrease those progesterone levels. And that really is one of the biggest things that can cause ovarian cysts is when that estrogen and sometimes testosterone creep up, progesterone stays low.

So we really want to focus on bringing that progesterone up, but you're going to do that by adding in more healthy fats and reducing that refined carbohydrate and especially that sugar intake. And we know sugar also feeds inflammation. And oftentimes when you look at another one of the 3 main causes of PCOS, one of them is insulin issues.

And so if there's an insulin problem in the body to where there's too much blood sugar spiking up and down. It can affect the hormones. So you really want to be careful with insulin and be consuming foods that keep that blood sugar level balanced. Sugar does the opposite. Sugar is going to cause insulin spikes, which can lead to PCOS.

Now, the next thing you want to remove from your diet to get rid of PCOS is processed grains and refined carbohydrates. If you're a person especially you notice that you have a lot of cravings for carbohydrates, you know, you want to eat breads all the time, bagels, pastas.

You know, anything that's very carby in nature, starches, sugar, if that's you craving those, that's a warning sign that something's out of balance in your body. Now, that can be multiple things, but that can be really related to hormonal issues as well in your body. So you want to remove these processed and refined carbohydrates. Some big ones are any sort of white flour product.

We're talking about white bread, white pasta, white rices. Also removing any type of wheat products. You know, gluten is another— a whole other topic, but wheat products still can cause insulin imbalance reactions by the body. So getting rid of those processed wheat products.

In general, you want to be getting your carbohydrates from vegetables, low glycemic fruits, and ancient grains that are sprouted in small amounts. And if you're doing that, That's going to keep your blood sugar levels balanced. So again, get rid of the sugar, get rid of the processed refined carbohydrates as much as possible. And number 3, eliminate emotional stressors.

Now, the truth is all of us have stress in our life, but if you are constantly stressed, maybe you have relationship stress with your spouse or your children, your family, maybe you have work-related stress, maybe you have— Yeah. Other stressors going on in life, maybe unforeseen circumstances like taking care of a loved one who's sick.

There are all kinds of things that we can come head-on with in life, but let me say this, it's not that stress is bad, it's when you have too much stress building up in your body. Now, you may have heard of a fight-or-flight response called a sympathetic response by the body. This is in ancient times, if a bear was chasing with you, they called it the fight-or-flight response.

Now, if this happens too much over time like we do today where we're on computer screens, we're answering emails, we're rushing kids to soccer practice, we're trying to make dinner for the family, whatever it is, all of this busyness in life, what happens is that keeps our cortisol levels up.

Remember, PCOS is primarily a hormone-related problem that's connected to insulin and then number 2 is cortisol is another big one and we could get into DHEA as well. But these are some things you really want to lower.

So in order to start taking care of emotional stress, what I would do is get out a sheet of paper, and you could do this on a computer as well, start listing out all of the things that are causing you emotional stress, and then come up with strategies whether it's with yourself or someone, maybe a mentor in life or a church leader or a counselor who can help you deal with and start eliminating these emotional stressors.

And sometimes that's something you can do yourself, but really start Scheduling in your week times to relax and refresh.

We're all going to have stress in life, but if you can schedule in times where you're going out on a walk by yourself, time where you're reading a spiritual growth book, time where you're just doing the things you love to do, that's going to better help you manage and deal with stress. Number 4 here, something you want to start getting into your diet are more fats in your diet, more healthy fats.

One category would be Omega-9 fats. Now, you know, I often say an avocado a day will keep your endocrinologist away. So omega-9 fats are great for balancing hormones. We know it has monounsaturated fats, magnesium, potassium. These are minerals that are critical especially for women at supporting healthy hormone balance and relaxation within the body.

So get more omega-9s found in avocado specifically. And olive oil. Now, some other things you can do, now these are more treatments for PCOS, is start taking a supplement with borage oil or evening primrose oil that contains a compound called GLA, that's gamma-linolenic acid, GLA, found in borage and evening primrose oil.

And in clinical studies, this has been shown to help support natural healthy production of progesterone. Remember, we want to get those progesterone levels up. Okay. And another great place you can get it in its whole food form is getting it with hemp seeds. You know, adding a tablespoon or so of hemp seeds to a superfood smoothie every single morning is a great way to get some daily GLA.

But in terms of a therapeutic dose, typically you're going to do that in a supplement form through borage or evening primrose oil. It's great for your progesterone levels. Now, omega-3 fats are another great one. We've got wild fish. You have things like fish oil. Fish roe, also known as caviar, also flax and chia.

I'll say my preference here is doing wild-caught fish or fish roe because of the high levels of EPA, DHA, and fish roe having ETA. And these are more powerful types of omega-3 fats than you'll find in flax or fish when it comes to reducing inflammation in your body. And a lot of women today can actually start to build up scar tissue. And have inflammation within their reproductive organs.

And so you really want to work on reducing inflammation system-wide in your body. And the best way to do that is consuming wild-caught fish, but also taking a wild— like a fish oil or a cod liver oil or a fish roe supplement on a regular basis can be absolutely fantastic at reducing inflammation and helping balance out those hormones.

Now, another one, and this might be the biggest surprise of them all when it comes to balancing hormones in women, it's start eating more saturated fat. And I'm talking about saturated fat from animal fat, saturated fat from bone broth is probably the best of all, as well as from coconut oil.

And, you know, your skin makeup specifically, a lot of times we're using a lot of these plant-based oils and lotions and things to hydrate our body and skin when the truth of the matter is those are actually different fatty acids than we have in our own body.

And so it does sort of a— A semi-good job of hydrating our skin versus using animal fats, the very same fat that we use in our body is better at hydrating the skin. And I would say a similar thing. One of the most important types of fats for us to get in our diet are healthy animal fats, especially those found in things like chicken skin, beef skin, where it's also packed with a lot of collagen.

But healthy saturated fat is great for helping support healthy hormone levels. Yeah. Also, big time for insulin levels, keeping those insulin levels balanced. Healthy fats can really help in balancing those out.

So saturated fats, you can cook with organic beef tallow, you can cook with organic chicken fat, or things like, you know, if you're making a bone broth soup and that fat accumulates at the top, that's bone broth oil, you know, getting that and consuming that on a regular basis. And then, of course, coconut oil. These are healthy fats you want to get in your diet.

Now, let's jump in and talk about some of these herbal extracts that can make a huge difference in you fighting PCOS and reversing and shrinking those ovarian cysts. Number 8 here is Vitex. Now, Vitex is also called chasteberry and this is one of the most utilized herbs within Chinese medicine for lowering excess estrogen and supporting healthy progesterone balance.

So Vitex kind of helps you tip your scale in the right direction. Of balancing out those estrogen and progesterone levels. And I've actually worked with a lot of women over the years and seen great results in Vitex with PCOS, with PMS, even in menopause symptoms, ovarian cysts.

So again, Vitex, really, really a great natural balancer when it comes to any type of progesterone-estrogen imbalance going on in your body. So again, Vitex as a supplement daily. Can be critical. And a few others that are here are great as well. Another favorite of mine is clary sage essential oil or sage standalone as an herb.

Now, when you're cooking or whether you're making some sort of chicken dish or Italian dish, you know, go heavy on the sage, all right? Lots and lots of sage in those recipes. And so again, you can do sage tea as well. In fact, drinking sage tea throughout the day has incredible benefits. For your hormones, but also clary sage essential oil.

You know, clary sage, what you can do is drop about 3 drops on your hand and rub it right on sort of your lymph nodes, this part of your neck, upper part of your neck, and then again in your lower abdomen. I would rub it on topically in both those areas, but sage has tremendous benefits when it comes to balancing your hormones.

Also, you can do a blend of sage, lavender, ylang-ylang, diffusing those. In your house is great for balancing hormones as well. So use more essential oils. We can do a whole other topic on how certain things found in plastic containers and soy products and the foods we eat increase estrogen levels.

So another thing, and the other thing that does that are a lot of our personal care products and household toxins can cause hormone imbalance. So you could also go through your home, get rid of the chemical-based products, your deodorant, your shampoo, your toothpaste.

And your cleaning products, replace them with natural things containing essential oils such as lemon oil, tea tree oil, clary sage, lavender, and some of the others there as well. And last but definitely not least, when it comes to balancing your hormones, drink more bone broth. Now, bone broth has tremendous benefits, one, for supporting healthy connective tissue and organ function.

Also, bone broth can be incredible though because of its glycine. Now glycine, you may not realize this, but your liver actually is responsible for a significant part of hormone production.

It really is responsible for getting rid of excess estrogen in your body and the amino acid glycine, which is found in really high amounts in bone broth, can actually help your body detox excess toxins as well as help balance out estrogen levels in your body. And we really believe that the amino acids in bone broth are the missing proteins you You need to be getting in your diet.

It's also great for supporting healthy insulin levels. So again, bone broth, one of those ancient superfoods that's a must in your diet if you're wanting to balance your hormones. Now, you can buy bone broth frozen, you can make bone broth yourself at home, but one of my favorite ways to get it and the way I get it every single day is doing it as a bone broth powdered protein.

I do a few scoops every morning as part of a superfood smoothie. So you can also go out and get it in its powder form and do it anytime, whether it's in a smoothie while you're traveling. I love adding it to rice and water as well. But get more bone broth in your diet. So guys, to review, if you want to help heal PCOS, get rid of ovarian cysts, here are some things you need to do today.

Number 1, get rid of sugar. Number 2, get rid of these refined carbs and grains in your diet. Get rid of the emotional stress. Start scheduling in things into your week that help set you free, build joy in your life. Get some omega-9 fats like you're going to find in avocados. Get some GLA in supplement form from evening primrose and borage oil.

Get more omega-3s in your diet from wild-caught fish and fish roe. Get saturated fats found in coconut oil and animal fats such as bone broth oil. Consider Vitex as a natural herbal supplement. Use clary sage essential oil. Drink more bone broth. If you do these things, it's going to help make a big, big difference in your overall health and reversing PCOS.

And remember, as I talked about earlier, there are millions and millions of women suffering with hormone imbalance, and if they knew these tips, it would radically transform their health and life. So do me a favor right now, help me spread this message. Take a minute now. Press that share button. Let's share this message and teach other people who need to know this information.

Guys, I hope you've enjoyed this live training video. This has been me, Dr. Josh Axe, talking about how to heal PCOS and ovarian cysts. Hey, have a great day, guys.