TOPLINE:
People with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) may score lower on cognitive tests than people without the condition, a research showed. They also may have worse integrity of brain tissue as evident on an MRI.
METHODOLOGY:
- Researchers used data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Women’s Study; individuals were 18-30 years old at the beginning of the study and were followed over 30 years.
- A little over 900 women were included in the study, of which 66 had PCOS, which was defined as having elevated androgen levels or self-reported hirsutism and irregular menstrual cycles more than 32 days apart.
- Study participants completed tests measuring verbal learning and memory, processing speed and executive function, attention and cognitive control, and semantics and attention.
- Researchers analyzed brain white matter integrity for 291 of the individuals, including 25 with PCOS, who underwent MRI.
TAKEAWAY:
- Individuals with PCOS had worse memory, attention, and verbal ability scores than those without the disorder.
- MRI scans showed that those with PCOS had lower white matter integrity, an indicator of cognitive deficits, including poorer decision-making abilities.
- Those in the PCOS group were more likely to be White and have diabetes than those in the control group.
IN PRACTICE:
“This report of midlife cognition in PCOS raises a new concern about another potential comorbidity for individuals with this common disorder; given that up to 10% of women may be affected by PCOS, these results have important implications for public health at large,” the authors concluded.
SOURCE:
Heather G. Huddleston, MD, director of the PCOS Clinic at the UCSF Health, San Francisco, California, is the lead author of the study published in Neurology.
LIMITATIONS:
PCOS was determined on the basis of serum androgen levels and self-reporting of hirsutism and oligomenorrhea, so some cases may have been misclassified without the official diagnosis of a clinician.
DISCLOSURES:
The authors did not report any relevant financial conflicts. The study was funded by a grant from the University of California, San Francisco, California.
A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.