HTMA & PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) in a 45-minute Mentoring Lecture.

HTMA & PCOS Transcript

Video Chapters

• Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) causes, diagnosis, and prevalence introduction.
• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) symptoms, diagnosis, and management. 4:07
• PCOS drivers include insulin resistance, inflammation, and hormone imbalance. 8:37
• PCOS, insulin resistance, and hormonal imbalances.15:26
• Heavy metal toxicity and its impact on PCOS, including insulin resistance and hirsutism.19:47
• HTMA Hormonal imbalances and nutrient deficiencies 27:02
• Case Studies 30:57

Transcript

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) causes, diagnosis, and prevalence

Lara Ryan  00:06

Welcome and thank you for joining us. I know some of you are very keen for this topic today, and have been eager to jump on board. What are we doing today Ian?

Ian Tracton  00:25

PCOS. Look, it’s a it’s a big topic, really. And the one thing that I would comment on is saying it is an issue that we are seeing more and more of. I would probably take the the tack that a lot of that the increase is due to heavy metal exposures and accumulation,

Lara Ryan  00:43

I would agree with you,

Ian Tracton  00:45

but it is a problem that has been prevalent in, you know, with young ladies, young women, for a long time, and even older, older women as well, who so we’re going to give you some background today, and we’re going to look at some of the HTMA biomarkers. I mean, it’s an interesting topic, because I’ll probably make the point that there’s not a lot of direct research with HTMAs and polycystic ovary syndrome. However, there are a lot of common denominators that we can see with mineral imbalances, and many of the causes or highly suspected causes of these issues. So let’s just,

Ian Tracton  01:37

That’s quite an interesting statistic, because I actually saw another statistic which was claiming that was a World Health Organization statistic, and it said 4 to 8%, which I thought was quite low, it sounds

Lara Ryan  01:37

let’s jump into it, and I’m going to apologize I do have a little cough in my mouth because I have been having my other irritated throat. So please forgive me, but I’ll try and talk to you properly around it. So PCOS, as we know, and I’m sure you guys all know this, but let’s do a little quick rundown for those of you who haven’t worked extensively with PCOS, so it’s one of the most common hormonal disorders in women of a reproductive age. So last testing that was done on statistics whether that affects about eight to 13% of women, so one in 10, I would actually argue that that’s probably a little bit more, and I would say that’s probably diagnosed cases. And

Lara Ryan  02:24

Quite low. So I think there’s a lot of it that goes undiagnosed out there as well, but basically it’s because is it can cause hormonal problems. So I’ve got problems with the cycle. Women will have trouble falling pregnant. External physical symptoms of things like acne, excess hair growth on the chin and the tummy and around the breast, excess weight. There are also some long-term health issues that we’ll go into a little bit later as well.

Now, when we look at the causes, genetics, hormones, lifestyle factors all play a role in PCOS. So women with PCOS are quite often, 50% more likely to have a mother, an aunt or a sister that’s got PCOS. And the condition is actually more common in our Asian, Aboriginal four straight Island and African backgrounds, which I think is also interesting. I’m going to put my little opinion here too, is that quite often, our indigenous communities are not adapted as well to deal with sugar as we are along the way, and we’ll see why that’s important. Well, that

Ian Tracton  03:25

It could be interesting. Why? Again, in one of the studies, it was claiming in young Indian women, the percentage was as high as about 12 point something percent, which was much higher than the world average. Yeah, and we would definitely put a lot that down to problems to do with blood sugar, insulin, yeah,

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) symptoms, diagnosis, and management.

Lara Ryan  03:46

And that’s another thing that we’re seeing as what would have been developing countries are becoming more developed. They’ve got access to fast food and more sugar-based foods, the changes in their diet, and as the obesity levels go up, as the metabolic syndrome levels go up, the rates of PCOS in women in those cultures grow up as well. So we know that there’s some big links. So let’s have a little quick, quick review of our signs and symptoms.

So women with PCOS, two hormones, insulin and androgens, which you know are our male type hormones, are produced in really high levels, so this gives us symptoms like a regular period, so sometimes more or less often, or sometimes no period at all, and definitely an anovulation, they won’t be ovulating. There may be some hair growth on the face, the stomach, the back. There might be a loss or a thinning of scalp hair.

Quite often, acne and pimples will be severe. It’s quite often around this chin area, because that is our hormonal area, and there will be there, but it can, depending on the severity, it can be anywhere. Weight gain, these lead into emotional problems, so our anxiety, depression and poor body image, there’s going to be those difficulties in getting pregnant, increased risk of type two diabetes, and the earlier the odds. At the more difficult things can be.

So the symptoms will vary from woman to woman. And I think it’s important here to point out the fallacy of a lot of people think if you’re a slim woman, you can’t possibly have PCOS, but you can, and I’ve had a lot of patients who I would look at them and think, physically, you look, you don’t look like a PCOS type woman, but all of those blood sugar irregularities are there and causing them to have those problems as well.

In the medical world, diagnostics use the following three criteria, so periods being less regular, so more or less often than monthly or no period at all, androgen symptoms, so the hair growth and the high levels in the blood, and then also an ultrasound. So on ultrasound, you will see partially developed eggs around the ovary that look like dark circles on the ultrasound. And they usually say 20 or more of these on either ovary on ultrasound is diagnostic or polycystic ovarian syndrome. And I should also just say that there is two. There is actual polycystic ovarian syndrome, and there is having polycystic ovaries.

Sometimes you can have the syndrome with all of these signs and symptoms, but not show over 20 of the cyst on the ovary. But sometimes you will have both. You will have the syndrome and you will also have polycystic ovaries, which means you do actually have 20 or more cysts on the ovaries. So many women with PCOS have difficulty managing their weight, and this increased weight in itself will lead to higher levels of androgens and insulin because, as we know, our adipose tissue is one giant endocrine organ. So when we’ve got more adipose tissue in the body, we’re going to be pumping out more androgens.

We’re going to be pumping out more insulin, leading to insulin resistance. So we know, for this reason, that we treat PCOS in a dietary and a lifestyle sense, it’s very, very similar, if not exactly the same, to how we would approach metabolic syndrome, which was also known as syndrome X, and look with in terms of HTMA, there’s extensive biomarkers that have been looked at in Dr Watt’s work. And he’s got a really good article on syndrome X, metabolic syndrome, and I’ll put that in the comments when we’re finished.

Ian Tracton  07:13

We’ve put that up before, by the way, we have. We did, but I would refer back to it.

Lara Ryan  07:17

If you want to have a look back through Ian and I did do a mentoring session on metabolic syndrome. So everything that we talked about in that session from a diet and lifestyle perspective and mineral imbalance perspective will relate to this as well. So it’s a good one to go back over. So there’s some added health issues that can come with PCOS.

And these are our fertility issues, hormone level issues and irregular periods, the other health problems that can develop if PCOS isn’t dealt with and isn’t brought back into line, there’s obviously that increased risk of developing prediabetes, type two diabetes, gestational diabetes, where people fall pregnant, problems with cholesterol and blood fat abnormalities, and obviously then later in life, that can even lead to cardiovascular disease, so a heart attack, strokes, heart disease, things like that.

But the good thing is, all of these risks can be reduced with active lifestyle, healthy diet. Try to get some of that adipose tissue off as well. So let’s have a little bit of a look at some of our biggest drivers of PCOS. So we know insulin resistance is a huge one.

Ian Tracton  08:21

Number one insulin resistance, yeah. And

PCOS drivers include insulin resistance, inflammation, and hormone imbalance

Lara Ryan  08:24

I mean, there’s so much that goes into insulin resistance, so while it sounds simplistic, oh, it’s just insulin resistance. Insulin resistance itself is this multi factor thing that we need to address. But what insulin resistance does? It impairs the ovarian function. It increases those androgens, it will manifest as high androgen symptoms.

So we’ve got all that weight gain, acne, the growth and loss, and look, we see blood sugar dysregulation so often on our HTMA results. And you know, we’ll and we’ll often see it in a woman who’s struggling to conceive, and if you see it in a woman who’s struggling to conceive, in the HTMA results always consider PCOS. So

Ian Tracton  09:04

look at chromium, look at manganese, look at elevated vanadium, possibly, and where’s that? Calcium to magnesium balance Absolutely,

Lara Ryan  09:15

they are our blood sugar markers in our HTMA. And the other driver of PCOS is, and I know you’ll be surprised to know it, but inflammation in the gut, because, as we know, when we’ve got

Ian Tracton  09:27

really,

Lara Ryan  09:30

So when we’ve got that inflammation, it’s impairing our digestion. We are not absorbing our food and nutrients. This is also causing stress. If we’ve got ongoing inflammation, which increases our cortisol, our estrogen, it can lower the progesterone, so it’s going to manifest as things like PMS, weight gain, acne, mood changes. So again, we know through our HTMA results that heavy metals are a huge driver of inflammation in the gut. I know Ann did a whole series on heavy metals on the gut microbiome. So all of that gut inflammation, it’s affecting our nutrient absorption, and don’t forget to those heavy metals will also work as endocrine disruptors. So they’re actually, you know, having a negative effect on this situation from two places. They’re coming at us from two places.

Ian Tracton  10:18

Look absolutely when those heavy metals elevated on the HTMA, you you already know, you got a highly suspect a big problem there. But I’m going to show some examples later today with actually low level heavy metals that are still a problem. So yeah, even, low level heavy metals leading to this inflammation, leading to a cascade of issues associated in this area.

Lara Ryan  10:52

Our third big driver, is stress and adrenal dysfunction. So as we know, any increase in stress causes increased cortisol and adrenal output. This lowers progesterone and it raises our blood sugar. So whenever we’ve got this, it manifests as high androgens, irregular cycles and insulin resistance is going to have that knock on effect with the thyroid hormones.

So when we’re looking at our HTMA results, the best thing we can do is have a look at that metabolic type chart, the Infinity chart, because that’s the easiest way to get insight into where the adrenals and the thyroid are functioning. So we need to know where someone is at in their stress level. Are they a 1, 2, 3, or four. And we need to know what’s happening, happening with that metabolic function. Where are the adrenals at? Where is the thyroid at? And that’s what we can use that great HTMA chart for to determine, because they’re all drivers of hormone imbalance.

Ian Tracton  11:45

Yeah, the clinical significance of, you know, your calcium over your potassium, your sodium against potassium, your your magnesium against your sodium with the against your sodium with magnesium and your adrenals and thyroid markers. They’re very, very critical in this area,

Lara Ryan  12:06

Really important. So when we’re looking at that big picture of PCOS, and we can see now there’s so many drivers involved, it’s, you know, it’s almost what we could call a complex and chronic condition, really, because there’s that much involved that we need to rebalance to get right. But it’s also a little bit of a chicken or an egg situation, you know, is it these, these cysts and the hormones that are causing the hormone imbalance, or is it the hormone imbalance by a metabolic syndrome that’s actually causing the ovaries to have the cysts?

And we’re about to talk a little bit more about what’s going on with that. And I really think when I when I look at it, when I think about it, I feel that PCOS is almost like the female symptom, presentation of metabolic syndrome, whereas in men, it relates more to the blood lipids and the cardiovascular which women can have too. But in women, it really goes and affects our our female hormones, our cycles and our ovaries and the production of a healthy egg to fall pregnant every month.

So let’s unravel a little bit how blood sugar regulation and that insulin resistance is so closely interwoven with PCOS. So we know that the two are linked and both of these conditions, so both of the hyperinsulinemia or insulin resistance, are related to a disorder of energy expenditure, so it can be categorized by a reduced postprandial thermogenesis, which basically means after you eat your food, you’re not burning it properly as energy, it’s getting stored away and it’s been turned into fat on you. So it’s known that these blood sugar regulation conditions, particularly in overweight women, are associated with an ovulation so not actually being able to produce a healthy egg every month at ovulation.

Now if we look back historically, this once would have been a real biological advantage for women, if you were carrying a bit more weight and you had a what we would now term a PCOS, like condition at times throughout history, where there was food deprivation and where people were starving. If you carried more weight and had more PCOS and produced more cysts and eggs on the ovary, you were much more likely to reproduce successfully than those people without PCOS.

And that harks back to the beautiful Rubenesque women, and when being curvaceous was all related to fertility, and all of those beautiful sculptures of fertility goddesses that are all very curvy women. And this is because it was, it was known to hold that body fat around the thighs and the hips and the stomach, and did mean that you produce more eggs in the ovary. You had that PCOS like condition,

Ian Tracton  14:48

but living in a world far less toxic.

Lara Ryan  14:49

Living in a world far less toxic, absolutely, absolutely. Although I don’t know how much of that coal those Egyptians put on their eyes, who knows how to well,

Ian Tracton  14:59

they they’ve. Well maybe the very rich women.

Lara Ryan  15:02 They could probably cope with that better without the rest of the environment being toxic. So, so that’s something we keep in mind. This is it’s actually our body doing what, as cave women, it’s been trained to do, is, if there’s excess food, store it, because this will keep your fertility strong at times of food deprivation, the only problem we’ve got now is it’s very unlikely for us to be deprived of food. And we’re no longer just curvaceous and fertile, we’re actually overweight. We’re actually moving into obesity. And with all good things in life, too little is not good, and too much is not good. And this is also the thing that happens with our sugar, our insulin and our body weight as well.

PCOS, insulin resistance, and hormonal imbalances

 Lara Ryan 15:16 So now we’re here, and science is discovering that there is a possible causal link between hyperinsulinaemia and ovulation in the and in the interaction of their insulin and our luteinizing hormone in the granulosa cells in the ovaries. So, what are these granulosa cells? They’re the ones that actually are on the ovarian surface, so the wall of the surface of our ovary, and they’re the ones that will surround the egg till that emerging egg comes out of the ovary.

It’s the granulosa cells that make that cyst around it, and they’re protecting that egg as it’s released and making its way to the fallopian tube. I’m seeing my cough fully. Just read out. I have tea. Now, the other thing that the granulosa cells do are they’re the cells in our ovaries that produce the estrogen and the progesterone. So they’re really vital to the hormonal changes that create our cycle, and we really need them.

And it actually is a pituitary in the brain that is releasing the hormone, messages, regulating, regulating and control the numbers and the function of these granulosa cells. So they’re important, but they’re affected by insulin and blood sugar. Now there’s also a really well recognized inverse relationship of serum concentrations of insulin and our sex hormone binding globulin. So insulin has got a direct inhibitory effect on the making of our sex hormone binding globulin in the liver. So again, insulin affecting the sex hormones, and this way it’s by the liver and producing those that sex hormone binding globulin. So

Ian Tracton  17:30

You know, your your lipid based antioxidants are really going to come into play here. You know, your beta carotene, your luteins, your vitamin E’s, that sort of thing.

Lara Ryan  17:41 Absolutely. Now there is a really significant interaction between our BMI and PCOS, and that’s in determining the deposition of the abdominal fat. So for a given increase in our BMI, a woman with PCOS will deposit more of that adipose tissue in the central abdominal region than a woman without PCOS. So if you’ve got that the PCOS picture going on, you’re going to be getting your apple shape. You’re going to be getting the stomach fat more than someone who isn’t. And the other thing is, there’s actually very little evidence for a primary abnormality in the estrogen in insulin receptor problems in PCOS. So that’s actually really interesting. This is all coming about through diet, lifestyle and weight deposition, and a lot of them with PCOS, they aren’t actually showing that primary abnormality or a primary problem in estrogen receptors that we can see in other things. So that’s actually really good news. It’s positive news, and it means that we’ve got a greater chance of reversing the effects of insulin resistance. So that’s really good. So something to keep in mind is that for some patients going low carb, because we’re always told go low carb, you know, a ketogenic diet is the best thing for this, and in a lot of cases, it is. But keep in mind that this can actually cause more stress on the body. And if this happens, we’ve got the adrenals affected. So you’ve got thyroid function slowed down, and this can lead to a sluggish metabolism. So just choose when you’re giving your dietary advice, go gentle. Would be my advice. If we can see on htma that the adrenals and the thyroid have been affected by stress, we don’t want to bring in big changes in the diet, because it’s only going to more effect the stress on the body. So when it comes to healing the PCOS, it’s so much more than just losing weight by a calorie deficit. It’s about supporting the metabolism. It’s about replenishing the nutrient deficiencies and a mineral imbalances, and this will allow some of the body to have healthy insulin and a really good stress response. And this is what we want.

Heavy metal toxicity and its impact on PCOS, including insulin resistance and hirsutism

Ian Tracton  19:48

Yeah, look, there’s no question. I mean, the more we discussed this earlier is we’re dealing with that patient on that biochemical level, where they’re sitting at. And, you know, we can look at the main contributing factors, yeah, sure, we know diabetes and problems with blood sugar regulation is going to be part of it that we spoke about the heavy metals and stress, but they’re all affecting our whole endocrine function. And I think this is all related back to endocrine health. You know, having healthy endocrine function is is going to help to mitigate or reduce this incidence. And, you know, it’s kind of probably a management problem with a lot of lot of people.

Lara Ryan  20:34

It really is so many factors to consider. Now, one thing that we do absolutely have to look at in this area is heavy metal toxicity. Now there’s a really strong link, lots of research being done, lots of studies that are linking exposure to heavy metals and the development of PCOS. So we really need to look at this carefully. And that’s where our HTMA comes in. So importantly, because we’re not going to make the headway that we want if someone is battling with heavy metals. So this

Lara Ryan  21:05

was an interesting study, actually

Lara Ryan  21:07

some really interesting studies. So this one was the title of it was a heavy metal exposure and trace element levels related to metabolic and endocrine problems in polycystic ovarian syndrome. So the study directly related to it. So out of 154 patients, we had 84 with PCOS. 70 were healthy volunteers, and what they actually compared were arsenic, chromium, cadmium, lead, mercury, antimony and zinc and copper between the two groups. So they had a really thorough look at this one. And what I like in this study too is they also looked at metabolic and endocrine parameters, so they took more of a holistic viewpoint to it.

But what the main findings were was that the mercury levels were significantly higher in the PCOS group. Antimony, they found was correlated with abnormal fasting glucose, cadmium was correlated with insulin resistance. Lead also had a correlation with abnormal fasting glucose, and all of these heavy metals correlated with the upregulation of the oxidative system and inflammatory parameters, and what they also did was down regulate the antioxidant system. So there’s a lot going on here, but it’s all leading to inflammation, and it’s all leading to insulin resistance and problems with our fasting glucose.

Ian Tracton  22:35

Yeah, that’s right. And showing the the impact, the significant impact that, unfortunately these heavy metals are having on our endocrine functions.

Lara Ryan  22:46

absolutely. So they concluded that heavy metal exposures in PCOS may be related to insulin resistance and hirsutism through oxidative and inflammatory mechanisms. So that was a big thing, and they looked at them as both single agents, but they also looked at a metal mixture. So they also looked on what happens with all of these metals when they’re together, only outcomes were far more severe.

Ian Tracton  23:13

Yeah, and look, I probably can’t stress enough, and I’ve stressed that before, that you really got to look at the how your patient is managing their insulin. Are they, you know, are they having trouble releasing insulin? Have they got a problem with blood sugar regulation? And you know, very often, that’s one of the first starting points with the whole process of cleansing of the body and detoxification. You know, yes, the liver is important. But with this, blood sugar regulation is critical. Yeah,

Lara Ryan  23:48

it absolutely is. So the next test that we had a look at looked at 369 women with PCOS, and that looked at their lead, mercury, arsenic, barium, cadmium. And some conclusions there came up that the three metals, particularly lead, arsenic and barium, were statistically associated with the risk of PCOS. There was higher levels of lead, and wherever there’s higher levels of lead, there’s a higher likelihood of PCOS. There was this really significant again, effect of the joint effect of all five metals on PCOS. So when all five metals were all above the 55th percentile, there was a huge leap in the risk of PCOS, and it was particularly led at 68% and arsenic at 100% that were the major contributors to this association, so they’re the ones we really need to be looking at. Arsenic levels had an effect on our luteinizing hormone and our follicle stimulating hormone. Barium had an effect on the follicle stimulating hormone, and lead levels had an effect on the fasting glucose and the insulin resistance. So we. Need to have a look at that. And yeah, there’s a lot of things. And we’ll talk a little bit in a moment about what we see in terms of things like copper with women who are on ongoing IVF therapy and things like that along the way. In another study they did, they had 80 subjects, 40 PCOS, 40 for control, they looked at chromium, mercury, copper, all of them were higher in the PCOS patients, chromium again correlated with luteinizing hormone, negatively correlated with prolactin, mercury, positively correlated with the luteinizing hormone, and copper was found to be correlated with the low density lipids. Copper levels were significantly higher in non pregnant patients than in pregnant patients who had received in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer treatments. So another thing, if we’re working with people that are getting IVF, another really good idea, to get the htma done and have a look at what the heavy metals are doing. So again, the conclusion of this was that PCOS patients exhibited increased serum levels chromium, Mercury pop up, and it was affecting a whole host of things. So let’s have a little bit of a chat about how this is going to look on our htma. Ian’s going to get some charts out in a minute. But obviously, after you know, we see many clients with PCOS studies coming in, and they’ve we’re looking at, we always see mineral balances on their htma. We do see the heavy metals, and we see lots of blood sugar biomarkers. So on these tests, once we have assessed for heavy metals, we want to look into the blood sugar markets. And as Ian said, the manganese, the chromium, that calcium to magnesium ratio, because that’s our blood sugar ratio, the other places that I would direct you to have a look at is our liver markets. So we know that some recent literature has shown that in PCOS, there’s an imbalance in adipo clients in the production of it, and this affects our omega six to Omega three ratio. And we know that it’s our liver that needs to get that ratio right.

HTMA Hormonal imbalances and nutrient deficiencies

Ian Tracton  27:02

So you’re looking at that sulphur, you’re looking at that molybdenum level as

Lara Ryan  27:06

well. Yep, absolutely. And as we’ve mentioned earlier, it’s in the liver that we make our sex hormone binding globulin that’s synthesized by the liver. So if the liver is not working, we’re already on the back foot with our hormone production. We want to look at Copper.

Ian Tracton  27:19

How can you not.

Lara Ryan  27:21

So as we know, copper will follow estrogen. Copper can be high or low, but we know that a copper imbalance, again will lead to PMS, endometriosis, fibroids, picos, estrogen dominance. We see it with people who have frequent miscarriages and warning sickness. We see it in postpartum depression. So there’s a lot of good reasons that we need to be looking at Copper, our copper zinc ratio, particularly as well, because we know how much zinc is involved in both insulin and hormone production. We want to be looking at sodium, potassium. And we want to do that because that’s looking at our thyroid hormones, and how our thyroid hormones are actually getting in and out of the cells, how we’re absorbing the hormones that we’re producing, and are those hormones doing their job?

Ian Tracton  28:04

So both your calcium, potassium and your sodium and potassium?

Lara Ryan  28:08

Yep, absolutely. We want to look at iron. And again, this can be high or low, as we always know it’s it can be equally as destructive, whether it’s high or low, because if we’ve got a problem with the iron, we’re looking at those irregular cycles, gut issues, inflammation can lead to a lower copper situation. And also, if they’ve got a history of hormonal birth control use, we want to be looking for iron as well. We want to look just at the minerals themselves. Are they depleted in the really essential basic stuff? What’s their calcium, their magnesium, their sodium, their potassium, doing and then we can also look at their metabolic type. We know that a slow oxidizer is going to be a little bit more depleted. They’re probably going to have a sluggish thyroid. They’re probably going to have some gut issues. They’re more likely to have those irregular periods. Our fast oxidizers have got high stress. They’ve got, usually anxiety, they’re that adrenal type, and they’ll actually present with more of an adrenal type of PCOS, which can be our people that don’t hold the body weight, but because of what’s going on with the stress hormones, with the sex hormones, we’ve still got a PCOS situation happening. And we really need to consider those thyroid problems so often as a result, or maybe sometimes even a cause, chicken or the egg again, of stress hormones or sex hormone imbalance. The 30s affect our effect as the third is also affected by our fluctuating blood sugar levels and that insulin resistance, and we know that thorough imbalances are one of the most common causes of infertility problems, and sometimes for a lot of women, for carrying that baby to full term. So some women will have little to no symptoms of thorough problems, but htma can show us if there’s possibly some hidden, thorough issues. Or, as we always say, the great thing about htma, it’s going to show up things before they actually become a problem. So we can actually if someone’s been a little bit strong. Us that the thyroid hasn’t actually started showing symptoms. We can see beforehand where they’re headed, and we can actually get them back on track before those symptoms develop, and we don’t then have to work hard to reverse them. So remember again, our calcium to potassium ratio related to thyroid function. Sodium and potassium are needed by the cells to move thyroid hormones and other chemicals in and out of the cells, so we need that to absorb it all right. So there’s a lot of information there a lot to look at. We’re going to do some charts so we can see it in real life, but with our blood sugar balance, adrenaline balance, the thyroid and the liver, along with the potential for heavy metals and also just that foundational nutrition being involved with all of our PCOS symptoms, there’s a lot that we can glean through our htma results. So we might have a little bit of a look at some charts, and Ian can talk us through what we’re looking for in those results. Now I just need to share screen.

Case Studies

Ian Tracton  30:57

Okay? I Okay, that’s doesn’t really matter where we start. 25 year old, young lady, okay, now she, she’s actually hasn’t been diagnosed with PCOS, but she has got a number of hormonal issues, menstrual issues, anxiety, very concerned. She wants to before pregnant. Had some difficulty, and has been on some supplements already, as you can guess, some zinc supplementation. Been on some bees as well. Interesting. Being on some magnesium and being actually some chromium, and there was some licorice root in there as well. Now, you know, when we look at this chart straight away, you know, the first thing you can see is, is that depletion of elements across the board. And, you know, let’s look at that low sodium and potassium, and that’s just low vitality, you know. So we’ve got an issue there. It wasn’t going to be this chart that we started on, because classically, you’re going to see and the other charts that we’ll be showing you, you’re going to see the more classic situation of low sink with elevated copper. But this is a great indication that it’s not always going to be excessive copper, and in this particular case, copper is coming into play because it’s going to support that estrogen for this particular young lady that she’s suffering. She’s suffering fatigue, not not surprisingly, she’s got no energy. And again, let’s move across the chart and look at where manganese is sitting. Manganese is sitting quite low, you know, again, that’s related to blood sugar. And let’s have a look at some of the heavy metals. Were too bad on this chart. Let’s have a look at the significant ratios, where we can see some of the real biomarkers going on here. And look at that calcium to potassium ratio, 84 to one. You know, we really need to build potassium with this person. The sodium to potassium ratio is okay. This is where I say it’s very important, on a hcma level, that we’re always flicking between page one and page two of the graphic results, because we want to see where that sodium and potassium is. And we can see that sodium and potassium will be quickly go back to page one. Was really struggling to hit the reference range, but the ratio is good, but we need to pull up so we do need to support the adrenals. That’s very important. Support the adrenals build sodium, potassium, copper is becoming the recommendation here to adjust the zinc to copper imbalance there. Moving across to the adrenal biomarker, you can see this person is really struggling as well with really underactive adrenals. And then we let’s look at the blood sugar marker, and your calcium to magnesium ratio is a little bit on the elevated side. So there’s quite a bit going on. And I will direct you down to the additional ratios on this, on this particular chart, if we go low, and you can see that the potassium to cobalt, very, very low and the potassium to lithium. So again, all of our potassium biomarkers are really struggling. And you know, we want to support digestion, you know, we want to support that stomach acid, to not only break down foods and break down supplements, but to improve that nutritional absorption. And you know, it’s, you know, the list of supplements that’s come up on this particular report, if we go to pay. Page to the recommendations that you can see, we’re looking at multi nutritional support on the stimulatory level. We’re supporting those adrenals. We’re using magnesium to balance the calcium to magnesium ratio. We’re using some basics, which was on the right track before, but, you know, we still need to be working on that, and that’s going to support potassium uptake, magnesium uptake. It’s going to make that zinc more bioavailable and make it more useful. Potassium came up in this recommendation. Bromium has come up in this recommendation again, because the calcium is elevated over the magnesium, making it more difficult for the body to release insulin, so body struggling to manage blood sugar control, and so some Chromium is coming into play, and some HCL support, and there was a little bit of vitamin E support for for the liver and so forth. Okay,

Lara Ryan  35:58

That’s almost a PCOS prescription, isn’t it? Adrenal support, parasympathetic support, magnesium Vitamin B’s, Gluco Chrome

Ian Tracton  36:06

without calling. And we, you know, we always treat individually. We treat individually. But you know your Para tone and your Aden and your Gluco Chrome almost a protocol, but they’re not a protocol because you’re going to hone in on specifics. Obviously that’s going to find the very common denominator there, maybe 75 80% of the time with your PCOS patients.

Lara Ryan  36:34

Absolutely next, and we’ll go to number one here. We’ve got a 37 year old female

Ian Tracton  36:50

the one at the bottom here. Oh, okay, yeah. Well, this you want to start reading out. No, this

Lara Ryan  37:01

is okay. This is a bit of a it is a big case. So this is the practitioner has suspected PCOS. She’s already on thyroxin. She’s already on a zinc supplement. She’s got hypothyroidism, fatigue, difficulty losing weight. She’s very depleted. Practitioner is concerned. There’s decreased thyroid, adrenal function, fatigue patterns. There’s a lot going on. Really sluggish detox pathways, unstable blood sugar, muscle pain in joints and sorry, pain in muscles on the joints, headaches, constipation, having problems with her fatty acid and her carb metabolism, bloating, appetite, sleep issues, constant fatigue, mood swings, lack of stamina, joint pain, significant pain before her period, yeah, sometimes around ovulation, period regular. I could go on and on. This poor woman was very, very unwell

Ian Tracton  37:57

anyway, so she’s come in to see her practitioner and done the hcma. And look again, we’re looking at that very low sodium and potassium. So we got poor vitality, calcium and magnesium and our fourth major electrolytes are all very, very low across the board, we can see there’s other issues moving across the board with, again, you know, potentially low iron, the coppers, again, low against the zinc here, manganese and so forth, and so even that low level of arsenic is an example here, and that low level of mercury, so she’s probably not clearing it very well, because we can see that the molybdenum is a little bit compromised as well. So a lot going on. Let’s look at the ratios. You’re going to see a lot of key channeling factors in the in the ratio results straight away, again, again, similar to what we were looking at last time, where you’ve got that underactive thyroid with that elevated calcium against the potassium we’ve got under active adrenals and an imbalance on your calcium to magnesium ratio. So all you’re telling biomarkers are there. And again, same scenario, low potassium, when we start looking down at the potassium to cobalt, which is your B 12 biomarker there. And you know, look, this person would be suffering inflammation as well. And so it’s it’s the stress, it’s the inflammation, and unfortunately, probably the medication is also affecting her whole scenario with her nutrient uptake, yeah, so supporting the gut, supporting the liver, and starting to improve the mineral pattern that we’re seeing, similar recommendations to actually last time, except for she, this particular lady, came up as a fast metabolic type. So the only difference there was the symbalance recommendation as opposed to the paratone. But all the other recommendations were. A fairly, fairly similar, I guess, the choice was to use go more on the digestive enzyme support, yes, and a little bit more liver support. So a few subtle changes on the recommendation

Lara Ryan  40:12

That’s related to that metabolic type as well. We will look at one last one before we let you all go. So this is a 26 year old female.

Lara Ryan  40:22

That’s one, yeah. Look, I think this was a very interesting case as well, where the Mercury’s pushing up a little bit. And this is what I wanted to say, that even this low level mercury that comes up and it’s in the reference range, it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily okay for this person at all. And you know quite clearly, when the iron is compromised, manganese is compromised, and zinc is a little bit low, that mercury is already having a huge impact on so many factors going on in the body. Again, we’re seeing this common denominator, common denominator coming up on all charts today, with quite low sodium and potassium. So I really feel what I see is a lot of low vitality, and that will flow on to affect so many other functions going on within our bodies, and so she’s got low resilience with low iron, we need to build iron. This is a more common situation where you’ve got the the elevated copper against the zinc. So zinc coming into play, irons coming into play. We’re going to need some vitamin C here to improve iron. And again, manganese is quite low. And looking at this one, where the magnesium and let’s have a look at the ratios here, where the ratios are a little bit different. Hello, live the ratio dead. We’re still looking at underactive adrenals. I hope we had an example where we had increased adrenals and decreased thyroid. But again, these symptoms can manifest themselves in a similar way, and we really need to improve that iron to copper ratio. We need to improve that zinc to copper already, your patient’s going to be on a great deal of going forward, when we start adjusting that iron and that zinc, with that patient, adjusting the and potassium again, is coming into play. Look at the toxic ratios. You’re looking at it all the time. The iron to Mercury ratio is, you know, well, it’s in the low section, your Selenium to Mercury, borderline. Really not enough, using to Mercury. Again, very border, white line, and you can see that the sulfur to Mercury. So again, we want to support that that liver health. We’re going to use some sulfur bearing amino acids here, and any supportive foods in that area. And in this particular case, looking at the recommendations, manganese is going to help with the blood sugar. Manganese is going to help with uptake of iron. We do need to supplement iron to build resilience, support the adrenals, support the metabolic rate. Your basics comes into play. And again, it’s, it’s low level B6 dosing. And generally, you know, two or three times a day is usually the recommendation here. And we still want to support that, that whole gut with with breaking down the nutrients and giving a bit of hydrochloric acid support, yeah, okay,

Lara Ryan  43:53

it’s actually all I’ve got. I got the three. Oh, well, that was,

Lara Ryan  43:57

Oh, you didn’t get this one, alright. Well, the other example we had was an elevated sodium over magnesium, and we had a very low calcium against the potassium, and that was a different inversion, where you’re looking at a really with a slow type four. So essentially, we’ve got elevated calcium over potassium, but we’ve got issues with thyroid and adrenals at the inversion of what we probably see maybe 70, 75% of the time, it’s going to be that underactive thyroid, underactive adrenals. But you know, again, any of the endocrine systems that is not in balance is potentially leading to this whole issue with fertility and any with polycystic ovarian syndrome, very much endocrine related. So that’s our summary. Really, quite honestly, it’s related to help you know you need healthy endocrine. Brain function. Yes, we need to manage blood sugar. We need to manage insulin. Heavy metals. Heavy metals is a huge part of the problem and stress, both physiological and psychological stress. It’s kind of it’s a big one.

Lara Ryan  44:28

It is. And like I said, I said, I think PCOS can almost be put in that chronic, complex illness. While it doesn’t always bring as much debilitation to life as some of our other chronic illnesses, it is. It’s so multifaceted that we need to be able to unravel it. And that’s where your htma testing really comes into play because it gives you the ability to unravel it. Is this person’s PCOS more driven from the blood sugar and the insulin imbalance? Is this person’s PCOS more driven from the stress and the hormonal imbalance? Is this person’s PCOS really driven from the heavy metals that they grew up with as a child? So that’s with any complex illness, what we want to do to be able to create the best treatment plan is to unravel it, and it’s HTMA that just gives us the information that allows us to start that unraveling of what’s going on.

Ian Tracton  46:08

And with PCOS and so many other conditions is there’s more than that just going on. Yeah. Okay, look forward to catching up with many of you in Melbourne at the NHAA this weekend. We’re down in Melbourne for the weekend at the National naturopathic and herbalist association of Australia, annual event you are and the week after we keep talking about it is the last of our national lecture tour will be in Adelaide, and looking forward to that, and have a great day and a great week, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Thanks

Lara Ryan  46:49

for joining us. Bye, bye, bye.

HTMA Further Information

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