PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) - Causes & Treatment

Good morning! I am Dr. Indu Taneja working as Head of the Department of Gynae and Obstetrics in Fortis Escorts Hospital, Faridabad.

Today I will be talking about PCOS commonly known as Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. This disease affects all age group women and mainly the young girls. Then it can affect the females of childbearing age and those of after the childbearing age also. The commonly affected females are the young girls.

This is caused mainly because of hormonal imbalance. This hormonal imbalance leads to the symptoms which are mainly irregular periods. Mostly, patient have delayed periods such that even women may not have periods for long months altogether. Then there is excessive weight gain. It can also lead to excessive abnormal hair growth on face and the chin and acne. On the top of it , there is hair loss from the scalp also. So this is all because of the hormonal imbalance. This hormonal imbalance later on can lead to infertility.

So the treatment is basically the change in lifestyle. This disease is mainly because lifestyle is changing nowadays. There is more of sitting work. The girls are not doing any extra activity. Most of the times, they are sitting and not doing any kind of exercise or exertion. They are just working on the laptop or maybe just studying and eating a lot of junk food or consuming a lot of cold drinks. This leads to excessive weight gain. This weight gain in turn leads to hormonal imbalance. So it becomes a vicious cycle.

The first and foremost important treatment in this becomes the change in lifestyle. Start doing any kind of exercise. Any kind of workout for at least 25 to 30 minutes. Cut short on junk food. No cold drinks, no aerated drinks. No dabba band things to be eaten. Exercise is the foremost important thing. Once they start reducing weight, automatically the hormonal imbalance changes and then they start responding. And after the lifestyle change, there is the symptomatic treatment. Treatment is to be given for irregular periods- maybe hormonal pills. Then if there is insulin imbalance then the patient can be given symptomatic treatment for that also. For excessive hair growth also. But to reduce this, to come back this, the most important is the change in lifestyle. I think for the young girls, the take-home message is that they should do some kind of exercise.