Low Insulin Lifestyle – by Dr. Ali Chappell

The author, a registered dietician (RD) and PhD nutritionist, talks about her successful approach for managing her PCOS with diet—and unlike many books or articles about such, her emphasis is not on phytoestrogens, but rather, on insulin management.

Why? Because PCOS and insulin resistance are strongly linked, insofar as each promotes the other. Since it is difficult to directly tackle PCOS (whose cause is not known and whose pathology is hazily understood at best), she opts for tackling this strongly-linked comorbidity, insulin resistance, as it is much better understood and much easier to directly affect. And then, by reducing insulin resistance, PCOS symptoms are simultaneously alleviated.

She starts by explaining the science of PCOS so far as it is understood—so, mostly the risk factors and the symptoms—and then, extensively, the science of insulin resistance (especially its causes, its consequences, and how to reverse it).

The “how to reverse it” part is of course the greatest value of the book, and focuses on avoiding insulin triggers. Notably, it also covers well-established insulin triggers that don’t necessarily cause blood sugar spikes and so can often go unnoticed outside of the lab. While blood sugar levels are often used as a proxy for measuring insulin, it’s not a 1:1 relationship, so simply avoiding blood sugar spikes (while still helpful) would not by itself eliminate insulin spikes. Thus, the extra information of this book being useful.

The style is varied; we see clear and comprehensible textbook-style clinical explanations, anecdotes about case studies, and a wealth of actual research, with citations linking to such throughout, along with direct practical advice of the “so do this and this” kind.

Bottom line: if you or a loved one have PCOS or a similar condition (large overlap with many untreated menopause symptoms, of course), then this book can help you while—as a bonus—vastly improving your systemic health too (since insulin affects many other things).

Click here to check out Low Insulin Lifestyle, live life on the low!