Tag : PCOS

London: Sons born to women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) are three times more likely to develop obesity, a precursor to many diseases including heart disease and diabetes, according to a study. PCOS is caused by the ovaries producing too much of the sex hormone testosterone. The disease affects around 15 per cent of women of childbearing age worldwide and is a condition that can make it difficult to get pregnant. In addition, the disease is associated with various health problems such as diabetes, obesity, and mental illness. Researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden said the findings highlight a previously unknown risk of passing PCOS-related health problems across generations through the male side of a family. While it is not yet clear how sons of women with PCOS are affected, research suggests that they are more likely to have weight and hormone problems. The study, published in Cell Reports Medicine, also showed that daughters of women with PCOS have a five-fold risk of developing the same disease. "We discovered that sons of women with PCOS have a three-fold risk of obesity and of having high levels of 'bad' cholesterol, which increases the risk of developing insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes later in life," said Elisabet Stener-Victorin, Professor at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet. "The findings are important because they highlight the risk of passing health problems down through the male side of a family, and they may help us in the future to find ways to identify, treat and prevent reproductive and metabolic diseases at an early stage," she added. In the study, the team included over 460,000 sons born in Sweden between July 2006 and December 2015. Of these, roughly 9,000 ...