ABSTRACT
There is a close association between obesity and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Women with PCOS are on average more obese than their non-PCOS counterparts with 50% having a body mass index (BMI) over 30 kg/m2.1 Women with PCOS commonly misinterpret this relationship, supposing that PCOS status somehow leads to obesity. In fact, the causal relationship is more likely to be that obesity drives polycystic ovaries to be more clinically manifest. Thus, obesity must convert some women with occult polycystic ovary (PCO) morphology to clinically obvious PCOS. Obese women are therefore over-represented in clinics while the relatively asymptomatic lean women remain at home. Every physician treating women with PCOS has to become an expert in obesity management-as indeed does each obese woman with the syndrome.
