65: What booze is really doing to your PCOS symptoms (and how to balance this over the festive season)

Office Christmas parties, gatherings over dinner and drinks, virtual festive wine nights over zoom with your girlfriends, your annual holiday dinner with your extended family, heading off to the beach to enjoy some cold drinks and sunshine, live music festivals with friends (for those of us here in NZ!). 

Whatever way you’re planning to do this year to celebrate the holidays – whether it’s virtually or in person if you’re no longer in lockdown – there’s one thing that tends to find its way to all of these catch ups. Alcohol! 

Given that it’s the kick off of the ‘silly season’ as us Kiwi’s call it, I figured it was the perfect time to talk about a topic a lot of you have been requesting – alcohol and PCOS. And I’m sorry going to have to be a bit of a Grinch… the long and short of it is that alcohol is very likely hindering your progress with improving your PCOS, rather than helping it. I mean, it’s not surprising – alcohol is a toxin!

I’m by no means saying I’m anti-alcohol. But I think, like anything, it’s important to be making an informed choice. That way you can understand HOW alcohol affects your PCOS, what types of alcohol are better than others if you decide to have a couple of drinks and whether or not it’s worth having a few drinks if it may mean you take longer to reach your goals, whether that be fertility, improving acne, stopping those hangry attacks or something else (hint: there’s no right or wrong answer here – it’s completely situational).

So if you’ve been wondering how alcohol affects your PCOS and how to navigate drinking and your PCOS over this festive season, this episode is a must listen!

This episode is for you if:

• You enjoy a glass or two of wine before bed
• You’re finding it hard not to lean on a bit of alcohol whilst in lockdown
• You fall asleep easily but always wake up tired
• You’re finding your sleep is quite fragmented
• You’re insulin resistant
• You have trouble with inflammation and stress
• You often have a low mood
• You’re struggling to get pregnant

Some things we cover in this episode:

• How alcohol affects your sleep
• How alcohol affects your PCOS
• The relationship between alcohol, your liver and your insulin
• How alcohol before bed can affect your core body temperature and HR
• Alcohol and sleep disturbances
• Ordering my book: Getting Pregnant with PCOS
• Christmas / New Years shut down period for those planning to join The PCOS Protocol

Resources and References:

• My Book: Getting Pregnant with PCOS
• Effects of maternal and paternal alcohol consumption on the success rates of in vitro fertilization and gamete intrafallopian transfer
• Habitual alcohol consumption associated with reduced semen quality and changes in reproductive hormones; a cross-sectional study among 1221 young Danish men
• The influence of ethanol and liver disease on sex hormones and hepatic oestrogen receptors in women