The real impact PCOS can have on mental health
Many of the physical side effects of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (a hormonal disorder, commonly referred to as PCOS) are widely known: weight gain, irregular periods, excess body hair and - as the name suggests - cysts on the ovaries. It's thought to impact around 1 in 5 women worldwide and could also make conceiving a child more difficult.
But what about the mental health aspects of PCOS? A new study conducted over fifteen years by the University of Oulu, Finland, on 5889 women, asked each participant (who was 31 years old at the beginning of the research) to fill in a questionnaire. The questions all focussed on their life satisfaction and health status (for example, their weight, height and the frequency of their periods), and the results found that the women with P...