One of the leading causes of infertility is often misdiagnosed and misunderstood. Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS, often leads to abnormal periods, abnormal weight gain, and hair growth. Many women with the syndrome are insulin resistant and have abnormal cholesterol levels. But with proper testing and treatment, women lose weight, return to normal insulin, and cholesterol levels and 60 to 70% eventually get pregnant. Dr. Steve Foley with Advanced Gynecology said, "A lot of people aren't treated because we don't have a definitive test to say this is what you have. We can treat it, but what I tell patients, we can't cure it." Between 5 and 10% of all women of childbearing years have PCOS. The percentage is twice that among black and Hispanic women.
Check out this interesting news report on PCOS - there is a video that accompanies it (you have to wait through an annoying commercials). I get asked a lot whether PCOS means complete infertility, but as this report shows this is only the case for a very small number of sufferers.
To your good health,
Lisa
technorati tags:pcos, polycystic+ovarian+syndrome, polycystic+ovary+syndrome, fertility
