For generations, a condition affecting one in eight women has been understood almost entirely through the language of fertility — irregular cycles, unwanted hair, the hope or loss of pregnancy. New research now asks medicine to look further, and what it finds is sobering: women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome carry roughly double the risk of heart attack and stroke, a burden that persists independent of weight and accumulates quietly across a lifetime. The heart, it turns out, has always been part of this story.
Study links PCOS to elevated heart disease risk in women
Women with PCOS face elevated mortality risk from heart attacks and strokes, with cardiovascular disease responsible for 30% of annual deaths in women globally.