Endocrine-Metabolic Dysfunction in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: an Evolutionary Perspective.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is characterized by hyperandrogenism, oligo-anovulation and polycystic ovarian morphology, with metabolic dysfunction from insulin resistance and abdominal fat accumulation worsened by obesity. As ancestral traits, these features could have favored abdominal fat deposition for energy use during starvation, but have evolved into different PCOS phenotypes with variable metabolic dysfunction. Adipose dysfunction in PCOS from hyperandrogenemia and hyperinsulinemia likely constrains subcutaneous (SC) fat storage, promoting lipotoxicity through ectopic lipid accumulation and oxidative stress, insulin resistance and inflammation in non-adipose tissue. Recent findings of inherently exaggerated SC abdominal stem cell development to adipocytes in women with PCOS, and PCOS-like traits in adult female monkeys with natural hyperandrogenemia, imply common ancestral origins of PCOS in both human and nonhuman primates.