Recap: Understanding endometriosis and PCOS | Dr Jen Ashton

Hello, and welcome to Zoe recap, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to help you improve your health. Today, we're talking about gynecological health. Conditions like endometriosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome are more common than you might think. Yet they're often misunderstood, frequently undiagnosed, and are all too easily dismissed. That's why it's essential for us to build a clear understanding of these conditions, how lifestyle factors can influence them, and when it's time to seek expert care. America's gynecologist, doctor Jen Ashton, joins me to break down these complex conditions, helping you to feel more informed and empowered in your own body. PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome, it's called the most common but least well understood hormonal condition affecting women. And in the medical literature, it is quoted as affecting ten percent, sometimes fifteen percent of women. I believe it could be even higher than that. So it's incredibly common. Hallmark features are signs of hyperandrogenism. Signs are increased testosterone levels producing acne, excessive body hair, male pattern baldness, difficulty losing weight or gaining weight, menstrual irregularities, so irregular periods. Those are a lot of the common signs or symptoms, but just to keep it fun and interesting, women can have PCOS and not have any of those signs or symptoms at all. As a woman listening to this, I think a lot of women will think, well, hold on, I might have one of those symptoms, which doesn't necessarily mean they've got PCOS. Unless you have one of those kind of symptoms and it's bothering you or impacting your life, is it something that if you didn't get it investigated, there would be no long term harm? Well, the thing that's interesting about PCOS is that women and girls with known PCOS have a higher risk of going on to develop type two diabetes in their lifetime. So it's certainly not a scenario where we recommend screening every woman or every girl for this. But because of the constellation of symptoms and signs that we talked about, if they're persistent, if they're new, if they're bothersome, absolutely, a workup, an investigation should be done to see if that person has it. And I'll give you a couple of examples. Acne on the back or chest of a woman or an older adolescent or teenager is not common. And if it's persistent, it is generally a sign of PCOS. All of us can get a pimple on our face every once in a while. But extreme or even moderate to extreme acne on the back or chest of a woman, it is generally a sign of an androgen imbalance, so a higher level of testosterone. And the clue, both for a dermatologist as well as a gynecologist, will be when a dermatologist can't really have an impact on acne, I usually say, and most of them would agree, that that's because it's not a skin problem, it's a hormonal problem. And so …