196 – PMS, Breast Health & Estrogen Dominance [Podcast with Magdalena Wszelaki]
We’re so excited to have Magdalena Wszelaki back on the PCOS Diva podcast to discuss all things breast health with Amy Medling.
Magdalena is an endocrine specialist, chef, certified nutrition coach, herbalist, speaker, and educator. Magdalena has personally battled with Graves’, Hashimoto’s, adrenal fatigue, Estrogen Dominance, and years of digestive issues. Her journey led her to look holistically at what causes hormonal imbalances in women and to inspire other women to take care of their health and hormones.
Magdalena has worked with women who deal with hormonal imbalances and has found that it is rare to see a woman suffering from only one hormonal imbalance. Estrogen imbalance, thyroid issues, PMS, mood swings and irregular cycles all play a major role in PCOS. That’s why this podcast is a must-listen.
All PCOS Diva podcasts are available on:
Resources mentioned:
EDS-Lymphatic Breast Massage Illustration-KF-FINAL 2 HI RES
Overcoming Estrogen Dominance Book
Cooking for Hormone Balance Book
Wellena Skin Care & Supplements
Happy Sisters Kit
Estrogen Reset Kit
Connect with Magdalena Wszelaki:
Hormones Balance Website
Instagram
Facebook
Previous Podcasts with Magdalena Wszelaki:
PCOS Diva Podcast Episode 152: Naturally Resolve Your Estrogen Dominance
PCOS Diva Podcast Episode 116: Overcome PCOS & Estrogen Dominance Naturally
PCOS Diva Podcast Episode 68: Herbs for PCOS & Skin Care
Magdalena is an endocrine specialist, chef, certified nutrition coach, herbalist, speaker, and educator. She is also the author of Overcoming Estrogen Dominance and Cooking for Hormone Balance. She is the founder of Wellena, a clean supplement and skincare line by women for women, and of Hormones Balance, an online community with information on how to get started on your own hormone-balancing journey. Magdalena’s Happy Sisters Kit is formulated to help women suffering from breast lumps, fibrocystic breasts, painful and/or swollen breasts, and breast changes around their cycle.
Transcript:
Amy:
I think we all understand the overwhelming fear of finding a breast lump, or skipping a workout due to PMS, breast pain or not being able to put on a bra because our breasts are so tender. As today’s podcast guests shares healthy breasts are dependent on your hormone status. If your hormones are out of balance, you will have estrogen dominance and your breasts may develop more lumps feel tender and sore. So, she Magdalena Wszelaki has agreed to come back on the PCOS diva podcast to share why women with PCOS are more susceptible to PMS, breast pain, fibrocystic breasts and what to do about it. So welcome back to the PCOS diva podcast. Magdalena.
Magdalena:
Thank you so much for having me back here. Always so good to see you.
Amy:
Just a little background, you are the founder of Wellena. It’s a clean line of supplements and USDA Organic skincare, and creator of the popular Hormones Balance community. You’ve written two books on balancing hormones that I highly recommend. two books on balancing hormones naturally through nutritious food, targeted supplements, and supportive herbs in her popular book, Cooking for Hormone Balance, published by Harper Collins, and the latest book overcoming estrogen dominance. So I know you’ve been on the podcast multiple times. I think the last time I’m kind of talking about that overall topic of overcoming estrogen dominance. But I wanted to invite you back on to kind of dig deeper into the connection of estrogen dominance and breast health. Tell us why women with PCOS are more susceptible to some of these rest discomforts as I was mentioning in the intro.
Magdalena:
The connection is a little bit of a domino effect, right? Because a lot of women with PCOS struggle have that condition due to high blood sugar levels, right? metabolic issues, high blood sugar levels, create high testosterone levels in many women, when you have high testosterone levels, that testosterone then gets converted to estrogen. So it’s not unusual for women to be experiencing PCOS, while they also experienced a lot of issues with estrogen dominance. And I don’t want to just before I go any further, I just want to also clarify I don’t want to demonize estrogen. Because estrogen is a good hormone, like we need estrogen to function as women to have healthy periods and good healthy mental function and healthy skin and, you know, good cognitive function strength, etc. Right. So it is absolutely necessary hormone.
Amy:
I just want to interject that women with PCOS traditionally have really low progesterone. So maybe you can explain that relationship to estrogen, too.
Magdalena:
So what is exactly so one of one ways that estrogen dominance occurs is, is the ratio between estrogen to progesterone, right? The I like to dancing partners, you want that to be a balance between those two, in order for a woman to be healthy, and it’s like with everything with hormones, it’s the name of the game has balance, right. And because you can’t have too much or too little of anything, you’ve got too much blood sugar, you’ve got too much insulin, it’s a problem and got too little insulin, that’s a problem you got, you know, progesterone is the same. So every hormone the word is balanced. And estrogen is like in this and progesterone and this intimate relationship where, you know, it’s like to dancing partners, right? Like, you know, they need to complement each other and move together and, and work together. And that always it’s oftentimes it happens that a lot of women are like you said low on progesterone, which then makes estrogen highly dominant and a lot of times is not the good estrogen is the estrogen and we’ll be called as to dial that up to estrogen that tends to be more aggressive, and it’s also a form of estrogen that you’re getting from synthetic estrogen. So, you know, things like all the endocrine disruptors, you hear about right, whether it’s from cooking, you know, from cooking utensils, or whether it’s from skincare products that contain a lot of endocrine disrupting hormones that turns into that appears in a body estrogen estradiol as well so that makes it even more throws the balance of estrogen to progesterone off even more. And when that happens, you know, estrogen dominance creates a lot of inflammation in the body. So estrogen as a hormone is an aggressive hormone but it’s also Oh, it’s also a hormone that can be highly inflammatory. When it’s in too high of a demand, it appears to be too much of it right? So same thing, think of it like, you know, when you are, for example, stressed out, you do need amount of cortisol to be released in order to deal with stress, right? Increase your blood sugar levels and make you super focused and get through trouble times that by then when things come down, cortisol comes down, right? And so it’s with estrogen if it doesn’t come down, and a lot of times it doesn’t, it just then becomes a highly inflammatory hormone. And then influence, you know, and that inflammation in the body can manifest in various different ways for some women, you know, you can have, you can let’s look at the list of what does it mean to be estrogen dominant and have a look at it, there’s so many different symptoms, and some women who experienced three or four of them, and some women will have all 20, right. And so, you know, so breast could be one of the indicators of where the inflammation goes, and the breasts are, there’s a huge amount of lymphatic passages and ducts in the in the breast. And so we often think about, you know, our lymphatic system is like around our neck, and it goes down to our armpits. And that’s important to us a clean, dry and, and all of that is absolutely correct. But we don’t think of often as the breath being a lymphatic, high place of high concentration of lymphatic ducts, but it is, in fact, if you like me, we are going to explain how to do a lymphatic massage on their breasts later in our conversation so that women can actually so our listeners can actually do a massage at home, you know, in front of a mirror and just learn how to do that. And it’s, it’s, it can be super beneficial. So back to the estrogen situation, you know, when there is inflammation, inflammation would appear differently in different people, right? Some women have estrogen dominance, they will have things like terrible periods or having very heavy periods. So they have thyroid nodules, or they will have headaches or having infertility issues. They won’t be ovulating, right, which is still tightly connected with PCOS, and so on and so forth. But there’s other women who will be like, wow, you know, like you said, my breasts are super tender, they can really swollen. Some women, for some women is connected to periods and for some women, so it’s called cyclical and then sometimes the breast cancer pain can be non cyclical, meaning that it’s constantly in gorged and that it does happen to women and it’s very painful and very debilitating. Because a lot of things in your life you want to do you can’t you want to do. And so you know, in that case, that just shows you that there is a constant estrogen dominance situation going on with a person like that and, and estrogen does inflames the lymphatic system so much so in the breasts it that they just become so in gorged and so painful. The other thing that estrogen does is it can create a lot of malignant growth in the tissue as well, right. So in and because we have so many estrogen receptors in the breasts, of course, in the ovaries as well, but breasts are obviously you know, one of the highest ones. And when there is too high of a concentration of estrogen, there is a lot of malignant tissue that can start growing. And so this is where you can find a lamp and thank goodness are lamps on both sides of the breast. Thank goodness, most lamps are benign. So it’s not, there’s not a cause of concern. But you know, I think any women especially listen to your podcasts are following your community, women who are proactive about your health, they’re not going to be walking around happily accepting they have a lump on their breast, even if it’s if it’s benign one, right, like you kind of want to do something about it. Because your body’s telling you that something isn’t quite right there. And there’s obviously a lot of, you know, a lot of women who are concerned saying, Well, what if this lump one, they will become something else than just a benign lump, right. So, so this is yeah, so this is where, you know, estrogen really is that that core of the problem? And thank goodness, there’s a lot of things we can do.
Amy:
Well, and I think that that’s what makes your book overcoming estrogen dominance. Really one of my favorite on my bookshelf, because you take all of the various out, I guess symptoms of estrogen dominance, and you were mentioning those like PMS and headaches and endometriosis. And fibroids, yes. And you put together kind of a care plan protocol. And that is you know, not just pharmaceuticals, you know, you’re looking at diet and supplements and herbal remedies and lifestyle response. So, I love your care plan for breast health. I thought it would be great for you to kind of share some of that. What you shared in your book, you know, with us today.
Magdalena:
That’s sort of what the diet first because its so elementary and so foundational, I feel, you know, with, we can talk about a couple of supplements, and that’s great too. I think a lot of women go to supplements straightaway. I think it’s not a bad idea to get some quick results. But if you want sustained results, and not just resolve your breast pain, but most likely a lot of other symptoms, food is just so foundational, and I know that’s your mantra as well, right?
Amy:
Yeah and you really can’t out supplement a bad diet. I mean, it’s just, you’re right and the food that we put on our body is first line therapy.
Magdalena:
Yeah, absolutely. I like that saying you come out supplement so yeah, so you know it’s I mean, my whole approach is based on a very high on the highly anti inflammatory diet. So I am a big proponent of removing a couple of things such as gluten, dairy, soy, corn eggs, and reducing sugar, right. So that’s, that’s a that’s a big deal.
Amy:
Just quickly, what kind of signs are you looking for that they agree with you or not?
Magdalena:
Yeah, so that’s a good question. And I talked about in both my books on you know, food sensitivities can cause so many different symptoms is actually kind of it’s it’s, it’s pretty amazing. What a long list of symptoms, anything from headaches, skinny shoes, including psoriasis, eczema, pimples, something that I struggled with for a long time. migraines, headaches, bad moods, getting anxiety, having poor sleep, pains and aches. Hair loss. What am I forgetting here? Any gut issues? Oh, my gosh, thank you. 101. That’s gut issues, anything from bloating, constipation, gas, you know, and the tricky thing with food sensitivities is that people think, well, you know, I went to see an allergist, and my allergy says, I have no allergies. Well, allergies are very instant in. And you can get a response like from literally from one second to about 30 minutes. food sensitivities is anything from 30 minutes to three days later, right. And so that’s the tricky part you can be eating, for example, a gluten sandwich, we’re past that bowl of pasta today. And then only have you know, anxiety the following day, right. And so not to mention weight gain, that’s another one inflammatory, inflamed, body’s always going to be holding on to a lot of weight. So those are so when you reintroduce foods. And you know, I have a specific protocol how to do that when you reintroduce foods and you observe your body during this time, and just to see whether any of the symptoms that hit you hard right away. And that’s way more accurate than IgG food testing, which you have a lot of false negatives showing up and it shows you that Oh, you don’t have a problem with eggs. Whereas you when you reintroduce X it’s like oh yeah, I have an anxiety attack because I’ve got three pimples on my back and, you know, and, and so on and so forth. So, so the inflammation, the inflammatory part is really important because guess what your immune system sorry, your, your endocrine system can’t function properly, produce, metabolize, excrete hormones correctly. When there is a distract, there’s a distraction of the loop mechanism. All the hormones work together, they inform each other to communicate with each other when the body is inflamed. There’s a lot of miscommunication that starts happening between all the all the different glands that produce hormones. So that’s really that’s really important to understand. And you know, and I can’t tell you how many women have told us that, for example, just by removing you know, gluten, right or dairy, like how much their breast health is so much has improved so much without doing anything else. On the other hand, I also like about talking about adding things in so you don’t feel deprived and the focus would be you know, on things like very high nutrient dense foods. So things like cruciferous vegetables are my absolute favorite. They also are going to support your liver in a huge way. Which by the way, the liver is there to metabolize your estrogens and help your body to excrete them. So liver health is huge. So here we’re talking about things like all the cabbages and collard greens and cauliflower and arugula, bok choy, radishes, turnips, watercress, I mean, am I I’m probably forgetting a few more but yeah, broccoli, brussel sprouts, broccoli and broccoli sprouts and Brussels sprouts. Yes, exactly. Those are the vegetables that’s the cruciferous vegetables. There’s a brassica family right that that are that are contains a substance called the alumina methane also known as dem, which I’ll talk about the supplement in just a second. But they also some of them contain also sulforaphane, which is which is amazing for, for, for breast health. To just like a little, you know factoid here sulforaphane, that is found in broccoli sprouts specifically in the highest concentration. You know, there are studies that literally show how sulforaphane can kill stem cells in breast cancer cells, right? I mean, just how phenomenal is that? So, this you know, so that’s, that’s really about food. On the other hand, you know, you have supplements, right? A lot of people like to go to as the first mode. And, you know, one thing that it feels it feels a little bit like marketing here took over when Jim has kind of gotten the reputation for being the estrogen Buster, right. And so you got breast pain ticked him, right, that’s gonna solve all your period problems and pain, pain problems, breast pain, peer breast pain issues, is a little bit unfair. And a lot of women get disillusioned by that because they take them and it helps them maybe initially, and then it stops working. They take it on, actually, they feel worse, and for some women doesn’t work at all. And the reason why that happens is because estrogen gets metabolized in the liver in two phases, and so dim upregulate upregulates, the first phase of your liver detoxification. So you open up the floodgates and our first phase right by using them, but then your Phase Two when the now the, the floodgates are open. Now the other toxins are going to the next phase, they need some binders to be bound up in evacuated, right. And if that part of the liver gets, it’s not equally supported, which for most people, it’s not, then it’s a problem. And that’s when you start feeling a lot worse, ticking down. And so to support your Phase Two liver detoxification is a few compounds, including I mentioned sulforaphane, that’s a that’s a huge one from broccoli spouts. But if you want to have like a supplemental guarantee dose, because unfortunately, sulforaphane varies and content in broccoli sprouts, it can be too negligible to being high and decent, then you want to take a supplement. So it’s in a standardized form. And, and so that’s, that’s one and then the other one, which is really fascinating is calcium do Blue Krait. And it’s not a calcium for your bone. But as the glucuronic acid does attach this to a calcium molecule, and that works on the blue carnation pathway in the liver, which is often overlooked, and very over worked, because that’s a pathway that metabolizes a lot of toxins, including a lot of prescription drugs, a lot of stuff. For example, a lot of women start feeling a lot of hormonal problems after having a surgery of any sorts. And when you typically when you go through surgery, they provide you with prescription stuff. I mean, there’s normal painkillers, you know, to prepare you, right for the surgery after the surgery, and it’s normal, that’s just part of their protocol. That is important to detox afterwards as well. So a lot of people don’t get detox and then that pathway, it gets really compromised. And then they start developing symptoms of estrogen dominance. But once you support it with costumes, you bucur right, is it can be a real life changer. I want to give you an example here. I have a friend who is an amazing herbalist and she has four autoimmune diseases. And so she’s on a very strict AIP diet. She’s got everything on the control, the one thing and she’s a big sports person, right. So the big thing for her was that two weeks out of a month, her breasts will get sewing, gorged, that she literally went from bra size from A to C in the course of four days, right. And then because she’s a big, you know, she, she’s a very, she’s living here in Colorado. So she’s a big climber, and a biker. And, you know, all of that end skier during the season. And so when it’s just I mean, anyone who has that kind of pain knows that is super uncomfortable, right? You don’t even want to be intimate during this time. It just sucks the two weeks out of a month, so half of your time of your life. Basically, you live in pain, and it sucks. And when I met her at a botanical camp a couple of years ago, she’s like, What do I do because I’ve been to all these naturopath and I’ve worked with different doctors, she then she had gone to like five doctors by then. And she has taken it all right. So everything I talked about, she does that on steroids, meaning you know, like, right to the end, right and then and then she’s done a lot of different supplements including reservatrol and NAC you know, furthermore, right? Oh, great stuff. And it was still it still couldn’t figure out what it was. And I’m like, hey, what about calcium did look right. She’s like, what’s that? Never, nobody’s ever told her about that issue within three days for breastfeeding was gone. Right? So this is just how tells you like how that one compound, just opening up that detoxification pathway can make such a profound difference.
Amy
Just to clarify, DIM (DiIndolylMethane), Sulforaphane and Calcium glucarate are good for estrogen dominance in general, right? not just estrogen dominance related to breast pain?
Magdalena:
Yeah, that’s a great question. so the likelihood is that when you take that supplement your if you you know your periods might get better your fibroids might end up shrinking you’ve your you know your PMS is gonna wake get way better right headaches will disappear. thyroid nodules might end up shrinking. So it’s across the board for it just binds up 30 estrogens and that those supplements are not something that we have in the PCOS the store, so I know that that is something that Wellena that you carry, so maybe you could just give you a thought out for that.
Magdalena:
Thanks, Amy. I’m not willing our store we do have a kit called the estrogen reset kits. So it’s got sulforaphane, Calcium glucarate. In a kit. We also launched a new product called Happy sisters. So happy sisters contains a supplement and the topical cream to to really help breast health and the way I designed the kit was that the supplement helps you address the root causes of a problem, which is estrogen dominance, inflammation and lymphatic stagnation. And it’s an herbal formula. And then the cream is focused more on giving you instant relief. So that when you have this kind of engorgement, you apply the cream and literally within 20 minutes you feel like off my gosh, my I can actually feel my like I can touch my breasts and it doesn’t hurt. So the supplement you know, I mean, the things you don’t have to buy from me, right? But it’s like what you want to look for is done customer to book right sulforaphane, but also, if you feel like lymphatic system is your problem, right then, for example, one of the things we’re using in our supplement is red roots. Red root is a an amazing herb that supports deliver, but it’s also a very gentle lymphatic mover. So we’ve got that in there. You also want to top a top up your magnesium, especially for women who are craving chocolate on a regular basis. You don’t sleep well. You’ve got a lot of cramps, you know, you might want to take a look at like, what are the magnesium deficiencies and correct that with the supplements. So we got some magnesium in our soup, but you can do that separately and top it up until you get a loose stool. Some women are so deficient in magnesium they need like 12 108 Hundreds, really milligrams a day.
Amy:
Yeah, and women with PCOS. I don’t know if you know the smuggling or 19 times more likely to have a magnesium deficiency. Wow. Then women without so magnesium is so key to to healing and health.
Magdalena: Yes, once you supplement well, you’re probably going to sleep better. You’re gonna put better you’re gonna stop craving chocolate, you know?
Yeah, less anxiety. I think totally. Absolutely. Yeah. So yeah, so that’s, you know, and then the one of the magical things in the cream that we’re using for the instant relief. So the story there’s two rock stars in there. The first one is poke root p o ke you know for those of you who aren’t from the south, you probably know Polk salads right and you know, and so is the root does actually used and when it’s ingested, it can be toxic, but it when it’s applied topically it has got an incredible affinity for women’s reproductive organs. pullquote has been used for centuries by wise women and herbalists and midwives to address things like nostalgia and the status or inflammation of the breast, painful breasts, but also even prolapse. uterine prolapse, PMS is fibroids so it’s just an it’s an incredible herb. The roots of the of pokeweed is you know has got this like this love and affinity for women’s reproductive organs period and we’ve been testing when we were designing the product we were testing one ingredient at a time just to see the efficacy of it. And I mean poke with something that just blew everything out of the water whoever I gave the Poke infused oil to will say like wow, I don’t know what that is in there. But that thing is is powerful. The other magical ingredient you want to look for when you’re massaging your breasts with a with any oil or cream is that gives even better relief is St John’s Wort you know it’s a it’s a very weedy plant and flower you probably walked by it 1000 times without realizing what an amazing benefit that is. internally a lot of people know St. John’s Wort has been the anti depressant. But we hear we it does is a country that is contraindicated with a lot of medications however, when you apply it topically, it’s just the its ability to reduce inflammation in the breast is profound. And and it’s actually you can also use that as like a central infused oil on your abdomen. If you’re having terrible PMS and a lot of bloating and pain. It also works wonders. And one other thing I’ll just mention you Here’s all we’re using borage oil, which is form of gamma linoleic acid is the same thing. That evening primrose oil contains GLA except that we chose to use borage oil because it contains about three times higher GLA content compared to evening primrose oil. And that’s another oil that has got such a high efficacy for prostaglandins, the inflammatory you know, part of the immune system that it really gives you the pain so you can either stimulate or you can, you can kind of silence those very loud ones which cause pain, right? So prostaglandins are, this is where it really wet GLA gamma linoleic acid can play a huge role in reducing pain really quickly. So there’s a few other things we have in there including like ginger, you know, oil in there to warm up the breast and you know, when you have like when is warm breast that’s when that tissue becomes much more open. We using Castor oils, castor oil to for deep penetration of the oil, as well as Nigella sativa oil. So it’s black cumin oil, you know, in the Middle East, they call it as the oil that will fix anything but death. So it’s a really nice formula, you know, you don’t have to buy it from us, if you just like shopping elsewhere, then just make sure that they like you can use an oil that has an oil that’s had any of those things or these a couple of those herbs. And then you’ll find that you can, you know, find some really quick relief in your breast health pretty quickly.
Amy:
So why don’t you take us out by explaining the lymphatic breast massage? Sure.
Magdalena:
The objective of this massage is to do it on a regular basis and not to be like looking for lumps. This is a this is not a self exam. It this is more of just like, you know, it’s not to look for trouble is to basically prevent trouble, you know. And so yeah, so you can do this, you can do this massage either in front of a mirror using a cream and oil that’s like nice, doesn’t have any fake perfumes and any kind of Xeno estrogens, right. Oh, you can do that when you’re showering and you really nicely leather wrap with some really nice soap. So the way you do the lymphatic massage is you basically, we’re going to do the massage on the left breast. So what you’re going to do is you’re gonna lift up your arm, put it behind your head, if you’re having a problem with your shoulder, then just lift up as far as you can, just to kind of create that space for your breasts. And the way we’re going to be massaging your breast is going to be in the direction of your clavicle. So think of the clavicle as your exit sign. And using the palm of sorry, the fingers of your right hand. So somewhere in the middle that the middle of three fingers, we’re going to start off from the nipple of the left breast and then gently massage it upwards. So as your accent sign towards the clavicle, so we started off at 12 o’clock now move on to 11 o’clock. And then again, you massaging that towards your clavicle, move on to 10 o’clock, nine o’clock, right, and you just continue that movement in terms of pressure, you want to put enough pressure so that imagine if there was like a honey underneath your skin, it’s enough pressure to kind of like get the honey out to that exit sign, but you’re not pressing to a point that it becomes painful, or you know, when you just creating even more blockages. Now, when you come down to six o’clock down from your nipple, right, this is where it gets kind of interesting when you kind of go down to breath, and then bring it up again to the clavicle. So you don’t go over your nipple, but you just go under the nipple and then over on either one side over to to your exit sign. And that’s you know, so that’s really takes you a couple of minutes to do one breast and then you switch sides, you do the same thing, exact same thing with your right breast. Using, you know, do you have to do that for the cream to be efficient, effective? No, not necessarily. Not at all. In fact, if you have no time, then you just put the cream on is going to be better than nothing. But I mean, I think you know, doing the kind of massage three times a week, especially when you have a lot of inflammation in the breast can be incredibly helpful for women.
Amy:
So is it better to do it after a shower? or it’s so whenever time permits and whatever,
Magdalena:
I think it’s comfortable for someone. Same as like, as you you alluded in the question, I like to do it after a shower because I feel like my body is warm, and my breasts are a lot more relaxed from the warm shower. I don’t actually I don’t like doing it in the shower. I like to do it afterwards and then apply a cream because you’re nice and warm. But you know the thing is that like if you’re using for example something like a ginger oil in your cream, then it’s going to warm up your breasts no matter what even if you’re fairly cold.
Amy:
I’ve seen of die diagram on how to do that. Maybe if you send that to me, we can add it to our show notes.
Magdalena:
Definitely let me send you the PDF for sure. It actually comes in a pack. So the supplement and the cream come in the kit and the kid has got a booklet explaining every herb and then what’s in there and what’s magical about the herbs but then also it has a little spendy that you put on the bathroom counter showing you exactly how to massage your brush and and directions.
Amy:
We know it takes a while to learn this, but once you do, it’s like second nature. And I think that’s what I love so much about your site Magdalena is that you really give the patient the customer a ton of information on why these products are so helpful and why they work. I mean, I’ve been using your happy sister’s cream. That’s one of the reasons that I really wanted you to come and share about about that amazing product with the PCOS the community, but I’ve also been using your digestive bitters, which are an amazing product too. And I guess one more thing, before we go just tell us a little bit about the digestive bitters and you know what they are and why they’re helpful with digestion. So many women with PCOS have gut related issues. I just think that that’d be one one last tidbit that you could share with us.
Magdalena:
Well, bitter is kind of a forgotten taste in Western culture. Right. We’ve got the sour, salty, you know, sweet, sweet, sweet, you know, kind of dialed in. Right but bitter is one of those people are not very used to so but I think I think you know, you like black coffee. And you don’t mind the better in this you can get get used to it. So let me just start off by saying when you put something better in your mouth, it sends a whole cascade of information down the body, right and first of all, like when you put letters in your mouth, you start salivating a lot more right? So the saliva has got this enzyme called amylase gonna help you to break down carbohydrates and then it sends a signal down to the pancreas and start producing more enzymes. It helps you stomach to produce more stomach acid you know and, and furthermore, there’s also research on digestive bitters on just on the just on better and better foods online how it helps blood sugar balance, right? The liver loves bitters. So anything you put into into your mouth, that’s better your liver. It’s like you’re happy time. So you know in every culture, if you think about it, there is an element of better, right, and like, even in Western cultures, like for example, if you go to Italy and you have an aperitif and before a meal, right, like a come party that’s actually kind comparing, by the way, it’s completely synthetic and it’s not healthy. at all, but that original thought of comparing was that it’s just a whole bunch of herbs that were infused into alcohol and then is served with something sweet in order to balance it out. Right, but it’s actually essentially a bitter drink. So and it’s something that you drink before a meal and it’s probably just to make you happy and relaxed. I’m sure it made a little bit of booze, but the original intention from amongst who actually introduced it to, to the Italian culture was to actually prepare for a better than history because back in the day, people used to do quite a lot of heavy foods and fatty foods, so squirting a little bit of a just a bitters before a meal right just really prepares your whole digestive system for digestion and extract a lot more nutrients out of the food that you’re eating that Lake District is breaking it down a lot more, a lot better than when you’re not doing them. And then I also have the after bitters which is after meal bitters that are slightly sweeter and they are there to calm your digestion down. Sorry, it’s to calm your nerves down so you digest better. It’s slightly sweeter and it’s got a tiny bit of things like any seeds in it, you know and fennel so that you know how you go to an Indian restaurant you have like these herbs you can chew on right is is there for a reason. So we just turned that into a very tasty after a meal better but it’s also slightly sweeter so hopefully you don’t create desserts afterwards and just eat and reduce your sugar intake as well.
Amy:
I love that and I have a very dear Lebanese friend that always makes me fennel tea after delicious Mediterranean food. So yeah, it’s interesting how it’s really infused in different cultures. Magdalena, thank you so much for coming on the PCOS diva podcast again and really empowering us to take control of our Hormonal Health.
Magdalena:
Amy, thank you and thank you for spreading the word about breast health. You know, I think the one thing I didn’t say is that we grew up so used to being in pain we just treat having breast problems as being normal. It just because a lot of people have it and you have it a lot but not make it normal. So there’s something about and most likely a lot of other health issues in your life are gonna result because I want to thank you for bringing the attention back to the attention of the listeners, of course.
Amy:
Thank you everyone for listening. We’ll be back with you again very soon. Bye.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
breast, estrogen dominance, estrogen, supplement, women, hormones, pcos, pain, lymphatic, oil, massage, inflammation, calcium, pms, symptoms, progesterone, broccoli sprouts, cream, gorged, headaches
