Many women with polycystic ovarian syndrome have increased their fertility by losing weight, following a low-glycemic diet, or through medication or herbs. These treatments are helpful, but they do not make the PCOS go away. No one understood why PCOS affects each woman so differently. Promising new studies may explain the cause of PCOS and how to cure it.

Women with PCOS are prone to inflammation. They also develop heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, thyroid disorders and other diseases caused by chronic inflammation at an alarming rate. Women with PCOS have high numbers of markers (C-reactive proteins) in their blood that indicate inflammation. These C-reactive proteins or CRPs are a more reliable indicator of heart disease than high cholesterol levels alone.

Inflammation is the bodys immune response to irritation or infection. When your skin is red or itchy, you can see the inflammation. However, chronic internal inflammation is a silent killer. In an attempt to fight the inflammation, your immune system may attack your thyroid or other organs. It may stop using insulin properly. Or it may try to repair the inflammation such as when your arteries are inflamed and the body tries to patch the problem with arterial plaque, causing the arteries to harden and leading to heart disease.

Finally, researchers have linked this chronic inflammation with the genes that seem to cause PCOS in Mexican-Americans (Mexican-Americans, Southeast Asians, and Native Americans all get PCOS at a higher rate than non-Hispanic Caucasian women). Other studies have shown that chronic inflammation is behind obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Taken with the other studies, I see this as a very, very hopeful sign that the cause of PCOS can finally be treated. Obviously, these genes are not going away, but research seems to show that if you treat the inflammation then you can prevent insulin resistance, diabetes and heart disease.