[CajunConservative]

GREAT PRACTICAL WISDOM IN YOUR WONDERFUL POST.

Orange juice and gram crackers can get the electrolites back up, too.

My wife and I finally noticed we were gritchy at each other most when we were hungry.

I have been wondering if part of the problems with all of the women, who are depressed, have mood swings, are b*tchy, etc has something to do with the effects of the low fat/high carb diet. Could a lot of the problems be blood sugar swings?

The reason I question is I used to have terrible mood swings, had female issues, and when having a hypoglycemic episode was not always nice. I made a major dietary change and everything improved drastically, especially moods. If I go too far off my diet the symptoms return with a vengence.

I was a case manager for the mentally ill for several years and the psychiatrist, who was also a GP, put all women on evening primrose oil and other essential fatty acids, vitamin therapy, adequate protein and sugar free diets and most improved without further medications.

[Marie]

You are right about the carb issue. 1/3 of all women have PCOS. PCOS is caused by high levels of insulin over a long period of time. Insulin increases testosterone and FSH production and decreases LH (got a hunred ripe eggs, no way to release them and some agression hormones sprinkled on top.)

[Quix]

Am not an MD but I certainly agree with you from all I've read.

I also noticed myself that when I restricted fats seriously, I became MUCH more irritable. And, usually, it takes a lot to get me REALLY angry.

Thanks for astute observations.

[SauronOfMordor]

I have been wondering if part of the problems with all of the women, who are depressed, have mood swings, are b*tchy, etc has something to do with the effects of the low fat/high carb diet. Could a lot of the problems be blood sugar swings?

The reason I question is I used to have terrible mood swings, had female issues, and when having a hypoglycemic episode was not always nice. I made a major dietary change and everything improved drastically, especially moods. If I go too far off my diet the symptoms return with a vengeance.

When my middle daughter was in first grade, they wanted to put her on Ritalin. Late mornings, she would have periods of being cranky and it would not take much to put her into episodes of hysterical crying upset. No reasoning would work with her, she would cry and scream for up to 40 minutes until she fell asleep

I took her out and started to homeschool her (we were already homeschooling my oldest) and I started doing some research in the net. I noticed that a lot of her symptoms were consistent with hypoglycemia. I noticed that my wife's usual breakfast to her would be high-carb/sugar (cereal, pop tarts, etc) and the episode would occur about two hours after a high-carb meal, and the episode would stop immediately if I forced her to drink some fruit juice (to get her blood sugar back up) followed by some cheese or meat.

I changed her diet, made sure she got protein in the morning, and she's been fine. She's now in 4th grade, still homeschooled and doing well

My point is that a meal high in flour/sugar will cause your blood-sugar level to spike, then crash, with bad results. Meat and cheese, OTOH, digest slowly and put nutrients into your blood gradually and over a longer period of time