Women with polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome face roughly four times the risk of heart attack, stroke, and artery disease compared to women without the condition. The risk held even after researchers controlled for diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
The study, published July 20 and reported by Healthline, followed 413,450 females diagnosed with PMOS alongside health insurance claim data from more than 2 million females without it. Researchers from the University of Rochester and the University of Pennsylvania led the analysis. The average age of participants at the start of the study was 31.
PMOS was formerly known as polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS. Compared with females who did not have the condition, those with PMOS were approximately 4.4 times more likely to develop atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease overall, 3.5 times more likely to have a heart attack, 3.5 times more likely to have an ischemic stroke, five times more likely to have a transient ischemic attack, and five times more likely to develop peripheral artery disease.
Over a 10-year window, about 12% of the PMOS group developed heart or artery disease. In the comparison group, the figure was about 4%.
Anuja Dokras, the study's senior author and director of the Penn Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome Center, said the medical community has known for years that the condition raises the odds of high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol, and obesity. The gap was in what came next. "But for several years, we didn't have the data on cardiovascular disease, we just had the data on the risk factors," she told Healthline.
The study authors described it as the largest U.S. analysis of this link. Most prior research on PMOS and cardiovascular risk came from outside the country.
Dokras noted that the 10-year window is particularly significant because it shows the elevated risk appearing in a relatively young population of women in their 30s and 40s, not just older adults.
Rachel M. Bond, a board-certified cardiologist and co-chair of the Women and Children Committee of the Association of Black Cardiologists, was not involved in the study but reviewed the findings. She said the results pointed beyond the familiar cluster of metabolic problems. "What stands out most is both the magnitude and the breadth of the observed risk," Bond told Healthline.
