Heart risks linked to infertility syndrome
From Toronto at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society
In women with polycystic ovary syndrome, immature eggs distend the ovaries, leading to infertility. Such women also exhibit many classic risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high cholesterol, increased abdominal fat, and diabetes. So far, however, studies have not demonstrated that these women are at higher-than-normal risk of developing heart disease.
Some of the first direct evidence for such a link comes from a study of 31 women with polycystic ovary syndrome and 53 healthy women matched for age, weight, and waist-to-hip ratio. All were 30 to 45 years old. About 15 percent of the healthy women had detectable amounts of calcium in the arteries of their hearts, compared with 36 percent of the women with the syndrome, reports Rose C. Christian of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Such calcium deposits are early signs of fatty plaques in blood vessels, which can lead to high blood pressure and heart attacks.