AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, affects 10- to 13% of women globally, according to the World Health Organization. The condition, sometimes called P-COS, can cause hair loss, pelvic pain, irregular menstruation and infertility. And it's getting a new name, PMOS.
Melanie Cree is part of the community of medical practitioners behind the name change. She's a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz and a doctor at Children's Hospital Colorado. And she joins me now. Welcome to the program.
MELANIE CREE: Thank you for having me.
RASCOE: So what does PMOS stand for? And why is this change important?
CREE: So the new acronym stands for polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome. And the change is so important because this condition affects all different parts of the body, not just the ovary. And in fact, with this condition, you don't even have cysts in the ovary. So the previous name was a misnomer.
RASCOE: What do we know about this condition and the origins of it, how people end up with this condition?
CREE: So there are three criteria to diagnose it, and in adult women, we need two of three. So one is periods are not monthly. They're either too far apart or too close together. The second one is they have signs or blood work that shows a high testosterone, and signs of high testosterone are growing a beard, severe acne or losing hair in the pattern of a man, and both of those are the same for teenagers. And then what is in adult only is immature eggs - they're called follicles, not cysts - in the ovaries. But what is happening more often, and I think why we're seeing this condition more, is this relationship to this hormone insulin. And so the new name really helps us pay attention to that insulin pathway.
RASCOE: Now that you are finding that this isn't just about the ovaries, if you cut back on sugar and, say, sugary drinks - I know I got to do some of that - would that help with the PMOS?
CREE: It does. It absolutely does. Cutting out the liquid calories, getting rid of the simple carbohydrates - so white potatoes, white bread, white rice, white pasta.
RASCOE: Oh, my goodness. But that's everything that everybody like (laughter)
CREE: I know. It's hard.
RASCOE: It's almost like when you're trying to prevent diabetes.
CREE: It is exactly the same way.
RASCOE: Well, how do you hope this new name will change conversations between women and their doctors?
CREE: For teenagers, it's going to make a huge difference for us when we talk to the teens and then their parents. We don't use those ovary ultrasounds in teenagers. So it's very confusing when we were saying, you have a polycystic ovary syndrome condition. And no, we're not going to do an ultrasound of your ovaries, and we're not going to check ovary hormones because we don't do those in teenagers. Also when we talk about the condition, people will be - hopefully, physicians will be more inclined to talk about everything and talk about, well, you know, part of the reason that you're gaining weight or having trouble losing is actually related to this condition, and no, you are not being lazy.
And then hopefully people will be checking more - do people have prediabetes or diabetes? Do they have fatty liver disease? Or do they have obstructive sleep apnea? Women with an ovarian syndrome are not screened for those conditions. So not only is there the opportunity for better understanding, but the opportunity for better medical screening of everything that's associated.
RASCOE: That's Melanie Cree, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz and a doctor at Children's Hospital Colorado. Thank you so much for taking time to speak with us today.
CREE: Absolutely.
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