Diabetes in bearded women (Achard-Thiers-Syndrome) : A clinical and metabolic study of 20 cases.

Twenty patients, selected on the basis of simultaneous existence of overt diabetes and marked hirsutism, were submitted to clinical and biological investigations. Obesity, hypertension and angiopathy were present in most of these patients. Metabolic investigations afforded valuable proof of hypercorticism associated with depressed activity of insulin. Nevertheless, increased steroiduria was also observed in groups of non-hirsute diabetic women carefully paired for age. Thus the Achard-Thiers syndrome cannot be separated with certainty from common overt diabetes.