— Colin Jost shared the turn of phrase he’d like to banish. A senior home rec room hates to see him coming.
PMOS > PCOS
Actually Helpful Women’s Health News
What's going on: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) just got a long-overdue rebrand. Following a landmark study published yesterday in The Lancet, experts announced it’ll now be called — drumroll please — polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS). It only took 14 years of patient-driven advocacy efforts. The new name better reflects not just the reproductive aspects of the condition, but also the metabolic and heart-related ones, including insulin resistance, diabetes risk, and cardiovascular disease. The term “polycystic” in particular has long contributed to delayed diagnoses and inadequate care, since most patients don’t actually have any ovarian cysts. (Show us a misnomer like that in men’shealth. We’ll wait.)
The impact: Roughly one in eight women has PMOS. But for years, doctors largely viewed infertility as the defining symptom (even though many women with PMOS can get pregnant), while overlooking metabolic issues like weight gain, depression, and early type 2 diabetes — all of which could “potentially shorten patients’ lives significantly” if missed. That’s what Melanie Cree, MD, PhD, one of the authors of The Lancet study, told theSkimm. She also said: “Having a name focused on reproductive health was really missing what more than half of women with PMOS experience.” Cree says she hopes the new name is the first of many steps toward better treatment and diagnosis. She also hopes it empowers patients to ask for more than the bare minimum: a cardio-metabolic disease screening every three years.
