The explanation why probably has to do with sure processes within the physique that may each enhance your weight and toss your hormones off-kilter, and the way GLP-1s can have an effect on them. Learn on to study why weight and PCOS may be so intricately intertwined, and the way GLP-1 medicine may snap the suggestions loop between the 2 and resolve signs alongside the way in which.
Weight acquire and PCOS can have a difficult bidirectional relationship in some folks.
As famous, PCOS signs usually occur when your ovaries produce an extra of androgens, or stereotypically “male” hormones like testosterone. The ensuing hormonal imbalance can screw together with your reproductive cycle, particularly the conventional growth of egg follicles, and go away you with a bunch of tiny fluid sacs (therefore, “polycystic”). It may well additionally make your durations irregular and set off the hormonal fallout of zits, extra facial hair, scalp hair loss, and temper modifications generally related to the dysfunction. Although medical doctors don’t know what initially causes PCOS, they’ve pinpointed just a few processes that may drive the overproduction of androgens within the situation, one in all which might have a simultaneous (and associated) impact on weight in sure of us.
Specifically, as much as 70% of individuals with PCOS have insulin resistance; which means your cells don’t reply properly to insulin, the hormone that tells them to make use of glucose (a.ok.a sugar) from meals as vitality, Christina Boots, MD, a reproductive endocrinologist at Northwestern Medical Group, in Chicago, tells SELF. When insulin is ineffective, extra glucose winds up floating round in your blood, which prompts your pancreas to overcompensate and produce much more insulin, Dr. Boots explains, because it tries to get your cells to choose up and use the surplus sugar. All that insulin triggers your ovaries to pump out additional androgens, resulting in PCOS signs. (Excessive blood sugar ranges can even trigger prediabetes and up your threat for sort 2 diabetes, each of which generally co-occur with PCOS.) On the identical time, your physique shops the unused glucose as fats, which might immediate weight acquire, Dr. Boots says.
A vicious cycle unfolds from there: Carrying extra weight might pump up the dimensions of your fats cells and set off irritation, each of which might make it even harder to your cells to answer insulin. Which once more, spurs the manufacturing of extra insulin, and in flip, the surge of androgens that may set off the complete slate of PCOS signs. These additional androgens can additionally “predispose you to weight acquire, notably the buildup of fats round your center,” for causes we don’t fairly perceive, Basma Faris, MD, a board-certified ob-gyn at Mount Sinai West, tells SELF. Plus, all these metabolic shifts can screw with the hormones that regulate urge for food, she provides, which might preserve you from feeling full…and immediate you to eat extra, additional contributing to weight acquire.
That mentioned, it’s vital to level out that simply because weight acquire might exacerbate PCOS doesn’t imply that it’s the trigger, Dr. Faris notes. Attributing somebody’s PCOS solely to their weight creates unfair blame and disgrace, she says. In actuality, there are probably genetic components which will set you up for each weight acquire and PCOS. There are additionally girls with PCOS who would not have a excessive weight or the above metabolic dysfunction that may worsen the situation, Dr. Boots notes. However once more, for individuals who do have PCOS and a better weight, loads of information means that the 2 can gas and feed into one another.
GLP-1s might assist break the vicious cycle of weight acquire and PCOS signs in individuals who expertise each.
The explanation GLP-1s are “actually thrilling [for people with PCOS]” is as a result of they’ll take away the limitations to weight reduction that may preserve folks with the situation caught within the above cycle, Kerry Krauss, MD, a board-certified ob-gyn in Philadelphia and medical director at Pure Cycles, tells SELF. Specifically, the medicine can increase insulin sensitivity (partly by slowing the passage of meals within the GI tract) and act on components of the mind that affect urge for food and cravings, all of which might scale back that never-quite-full feeling frequent in of us with PCOS.