What is Ovary Syndrome?
Causes, Symptoms and Prevention

Ovary Syndrome or fully expressed, the Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) may be termed as a hormone imbalance that usually causes irregular periods, unwanted growth of hair (hirsutism), loss of scalp hair, acne and infertility among women of child-bearing ages. It can also affect younger girls as well as postmenopausal women. Undue weight gain or gradual loss of weight, patches of dark skin appearing on the back of the neck and on other body areas, clinically called acanthosis nigricans, could be other symptoms that are linked with PCOS.

Drs. Stein and Leventhal were the first people who had introduced the disease in a syndrome form to the medical world in the year 1935. While conducting clinical studies on a group of women suffering from amenorrhea (lack of menstrual period), irregular periods , hirsutism and infertility, they observed that these women had enlarged ovaries and were making more testosterone and progesterone. This hormonal imbalance, according to them, was the root cause of the symptoms that were manifest in these women.

However, scientists have later found that women affected by PCOS are also likely to suffer from potential metabolic disarray linked to type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disorders.

However, more detailed studies have revealed that the real culprit are the ovarian follicles that are supposed to hold one ovum or egg that should be released for fertilization within a given period of time. But with PCOS, they fail to do this primary duty and instead, go on developing themselves that eventually turn them into ovarian cysts. Of course, the ovaries are also responsible for this, because they fail to produce adequate hormones that are required for the egg to mature.