Abbott co-authors publication and guest edits Reproduction’s special series on PCOS
David Abbott, PhD, professor in the Division of Reproductive Sciences, co-authored a review in Reproduction as part of a special series on Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: Origins and Implications. Abbott is a guest editor for the special series. Co-authors on the review and co-editors for the special series include Daniel Dumesic and Vasantha Padmanabhan.
In “Polycystic ovary syndrome: an evolutionary metabolic adaptation”, Abbott and co-authors explore PCOS as an ancestral primate trait that, in humans, likely underwent relatively recent preferential selection when scarcity of food in hunter-gatherers of the Pleistocene selected for enhanced fat storage and insulin resistance as a survival advantage to maintain glucose homeostasis for brain and reproductive function.
As an evolutional model for PCOS, healthy normal-weight women with hyperandrogenic PCOS have subcutaneous (SC) abdominal adipose stem cells that favor exaggerated lipid accumulation during adipocyte development in vitro accompanied by reduced systemic insulin sensitivity and preferential accumulation of highly lipolytic intra-abdominal fat. Programmed by genetic inheritance and epigenetic events during early life, such a metabolic adaptation in PCOS, provides a balance between enhanced SC adipose fat storage and increased circulating glucose and free fatty acid availability as energy substrate for crucial target tissues. The accompanying increased muscle strength and oligo-anovulation in PCOS women of antiquity also enabled sustained energy use during endurance activities in combination with greater time as a rearing advantage for children and a lower risk of maternal mortality.
Heritable PCOS characteristics that originally evolved in primates as a genetically and epigenetically enhanced metabolic adaptation to favor fat storage now predispose to lipotoxicity and pregnancy complications, calling for improved preventive healthcare, with early lifestyle and therapeutic choices to optimize the long-term health of PCOS women and their children in today’s obesogenic environment.
Read the whole article here. Incredible work, Dr. Abbott!