February 18th, 2009
The team of Dr. Nancy Dunne and Bill Slater cover a new study that further links women with PCOS to Fibrocystic breast disease in their February 18th newsletter, PCOS Review. Learn yet another good reason to include omega 3 fatty acids in your diet. – Catherine, Editor PCOS Support Blog.
Did you know that women with PCOS are more than three times as likely to develop fibrocystic breast disease, according to a new study?
Fibrocystic breast disease is a condition where both breasts become tender or painful, and lumpy. The roundish lumps can be soft or firm, move freely within the breast tissue and are tender to the touch.
Fibrocystic breast disease has been linked to excess estrogen and prolactin. Women with PCOS also often tend to have elevated estrogen and prolactin.
Standard treatment is pain relievers or possibly birth control pills. But there’s more that you can do.
1) Consume more omega-3 fats, which are found mainly in fish or fish oil. A new medical study from Oregon Health and Science University has shown that women who consume the most omega-3 fats were 67% less likely to have fibrocystic br.easts and 49% less likely to have breast cancer.
Read the full article here:
www.ovarian-cysts-pcos.com/news75.html#sec2
February 8th, 2009
Kat Carney, the #1 Soulcyster and founder of www.soulcysters.net covers a research article on the prevalence of mood disorders among women with PCOS that appears in the January 2009 issue of Fertility and Sterility. It’s very positive that greater attention is being focused on these serious PCOS side effects – Catherine, PCOS Support blog Editor
By Kat Carney
www.soulcysters.net
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – The prevalence of depression and anxiety among patients with polycystic ovary syndrome is high and warrants routine screening and aggressive treatment, investigators report in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
In a previous study, Dr. Anuja Dokras, at the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues identified high rates of depression (35 percent) among women with PCOS, substantially higher than the 10.7 percent rate among the comparison subjects. The current report is a follow-up to that study to determine the persistence of mood disorders and the incidence of new mood disorders.
Sixty of the original 103 women participated in the second survey, conducted an average of 22 months after the first survey.
The prevalence of depression increased to 40 percent. Fifteen percent had panic syndrome or other anxiety disorder, and 23 percent had binge-eating disorder. Fifty-seven percent (34) of the study subjects were affected by at least one mental health disorder.
The authors note that there were 11 new cases of depression. Of the 20 subjects diagnosed with depression at the early assessment, 5 (25 percent) still had major depressive disorder, despite ongoing treatment.
“The high prevalence rate of depression and persistence of new cases in this population suggests that initial evaluation of all women with PCOS should also include assessment of mental health disorders,” Dokras and associates advise.
They recommend that physicians administer the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders Patient Health Questionnaire (PRIME-MD PHQ) to their PCOS patients because it screens for eating disorders and anxiety, as well as depression.
They also suggest that patients be referred to dermatology and for weight loss counseling, since hirsutism, acne, and excess weight associated with PCOS may contribute to the emotional problems.
SOURCE: Fertility and Sterility, January 2009.
http://www.soulcysters.net/mood-disorders-common-polycystic-ovary-syndrome-270599/
Read more about PCOS and Mood Swings at:
http://pcos.insulitelabs.com/PCOS-and-Mood-Swings.php
