Understanding PCOS: Myths and Facts

Transcript

Bring experimenti if you have PCOS. Is that true? What the science? T edition, Part 1. PCOS, or polycystic ovary syndrome, affects between 4 and 20% of women of reproductive age. Although many don't know it. That wide range itself shows just how poorly we understand it, and boy do I feel for anyone who has to deal with it. Most common symptoms are irregular periods, abnormal hair growth, and acne. But it's also linked to a whole host of different health issues, from diabetes and obesity to heart disease and different types of cancer. There are a whole bunch of different possible causes. and different ways it expresses itself. But most have excessive androgen secretion, i.e. too much production of male hormones like testosterone, which directly leads to that extra hair growth. When hair growth is a big problem, we first try topical creams and lasers. But for serious cases, one type of treatment involves drugs to lower androgen hormone production, which can help, but they don't eliminate the rest of the PCOS symptoms. A 2023 meta-analysis concluded that current evidence does not support the use of anti-androgens preferentially to COCPs to treat hyperandrogenism in PCOS, us to Spearmint tea. Two small human trials and a few rat studies show that drinking spearmint tea might lower testosterone production and increase progesterone, but it's never been shown to actually help PCOS. Note, if it did, timing might matter, i.e. you might want to drink the tea in the latter half of your period cycle. You'd probably want to take it for the week or two after ovulating. But this meta-analysis of the effect of all sorts of different teas on women with PCOS found the best evidence for green tea, not spearmint, due to green teas possible beneficial effects on both hormone levels and weight loss. if you have high blood pressure.

Additional notes

Next up: Does Hibiscus Tea cure High Blood Pressure? ⚠️ Note: In the human spearmint RCT that the original video cited (one of the two I mention), patients reported SUBJECTIVE improvements for their hirsutism score, but the OBJECTIVE measure didn’t show any improvement! And the authors themselves concluded that their study was not long enough to make any determination about clinical relevance! Even the meta-analysis only found a handful of studies on Green tea and PCOS, and the effect size was fairly small. Diet and exercise are the best overall interventions to help, but for severe cases you should talk to your doctor about hormonal birth control. As with almost every discussion of “natural remedies,” we’re limited by the small number of good studies that have been done on them. But when it comes to normal amounts of tea (vs. high dose supplements and extracts), it’s at least safe and generally healthy in many other ways, so likely won’t hurt to try the N=1 experiment to see if it helps YOU! (I’ll talk more about how I design these for myself in the future) References: Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: Pathophysiology, Presentation, and Treatment With Emphasis on Adolescent Girls - 2019 A Review and Meta-Analysis of the Prevalence and Health Impact of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Among Medical and Dental Students - 2023 Efficacy and safety of anti-androgens in the management of polycystic ovary syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials - 2023 The risk of metabolic syndrome in polycystic ovary syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis - 2017 Spearmint herbal tea has significant anti-androgen effects in polycystic ovarian syndrome. a randomized controlled trial - 2009 #science #stem #nutrition #tea