ReviewReproduction (Cambridge, England)2025
POLYCYSTIC OVARY SYNDROME: ORIGINS AND IMPLICATIONS: Polycystic ovary syndrome: an evolutionary metabolic adaptation.
Review in Reproduction (Cambridge, England), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Natural Bioactive Compounds in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: Properties, Molecular Mechanisms, and Therapeutic Potential.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Developmental programming: gestational exposure to excess testosterone disrupts maternal steroid homeostasis and perturbs the steroid-lipid relationship in sheep.Molecular and cellular endocrinology · 2026Article
- New Challenges and Perspectives in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- The Endocrinological Basis for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: An Evolutionary Perspective.Endocrinology · 2025Review
- Molecular Impact of Metabolic and Endocrine Disturbance on Endometrial Function in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Recognizing the Role of Insulin Resistance in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: A Paradigm Shift from a Glucose-Centric Approach to an Insulin-Centric Model.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
In brief: Polycystic ovary syndrome has ancient genetic origins that favored preferential abdominal fat accumulation, ovarian hyperandrogenism and insulin resistance. This review examines how endocrine-metabolic changes in normal-weight hyperandrogenic PCOS women originated as an evolutionary metabolic adaptation to balance enhanced fat storage with increased glucose and fatty acid availability for optimal energy use for survival and reproduction. Abstract: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common endocrinopathy of reproductive-aged women, characterized by hyperandrogenism, oligo-anovulation and insulin resistance in combination with preferential abdominal fat accumulation. As an ancestral primate trait, PCOS in humans likely underwent relatively recent preferential selection when scarcity of food in hunter-gatherers of the Pleistocene selected for enhanced fat storage and insulin resistance as a survival advantage to maintain glucose homeostasis for brain and reproductive function. As an evolutional model for PCOS, healthy normal-weight women with hyperandrogenic PCOS have subcutaneous (SC) abdominal adipose stem cells that favor exaggerated lipid accumulation during adipocyte development in vitro accompanied by reduced systemic insulin sensitivity and preferential accumulation of highly lipolytic intra-abdominal fat. Programmed by genetic inheritance and epigenetic events during early life, such a metabolic adaptation in PCOS, provides a balance between enhanced SC adipose fat storage and increased circulating glucose and free fatty acid availability as energy substrate for crucial target tissues. The accompanying increased muscle strength and oligo-anovulation in PCOS women of antiquity also enabled sustained energy use during endurance activities in combination with greater time as a rearing advantage for children and a lower risk of maternal mortality. Heritable PCOS characteristics that originally evolved in primates as a genetically and epigenetically enhanced metabolic adaptation to favor fat storage now predispose to lipotoxicity and pregnancy complications, calling for improved preventive healthcare, with early lifestyle and therapeutic choices to optimize the long-term health of PCOS women and their children in today's obesogenic environment.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.