Abbott published in Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology

A new article by David Abbott, PhD, of the UW Ob-Gyn Division of Reproductive Sciences, examines historical evidence that polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) may have originated as an evolutionary adaptation for reproduction during food scarcity.

“Polycystic ovary syndrome as a plausible evolutionary outcome of metabolic adaptation” is a review article published in the Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology journal. This changing consideration for the origins of PCOS may help explain why it is so prevalent, why obesity exaggerates its signs and symptoms, and that better pro-active and early prepubertal clinical management, including better therapeutics, can bring about effective “cures”, as the underlying genetic and developmental origins may not be true pathology: 

“This PCOS phenotype may be an evolutionary metabolic adaptation to balance energy storage with glucose availability and fatty acid oxidation for optimal energy use during reproduction. This review integrates fundamental endocrine-metabolic changes in healthy, normal-weight PCOS women with similar PCOS-like traits present in animal models in which tissue differentiation is completed during fetal life as in humans to support the evolutionary concept that PCOS has common ancestral and developmental origins.”

Read the whole article here!