Polycystic ovarian syndrome is a little bit different animal actually. Here is some genetic predisposition. Classically: an overweight young female presents with oligomenorrhea or amenorrhea, anovulation, acne, hirsutism, and or infertility.
What is what? Poly = many. Many, many, many men. So PCOS means bunch of those bubbles in
ovaries. The follicles did not rupture on time, as they should. Oligo means a little. Meno is derived from menses. Rrhea means flow in Latin
So olygomenorrhea = flowing a little bit (less than it should). A- is a prefix that means "No". So, amenorrhea = no flow at all. Hirsutism. I don't remember where it came from, but means hairy or hairiness. Actually excessive hairiness.
Causes of PCOD or PCOS (disease or syndrome) are obesity, genetic predisposition and some other causes of Luteinizing hormone (LH) excess.
There is a self-amplifying cycle:
LH stimulates theca lutein cells. Theca means sort of capsule. Doesn't really matter, just an anatomical term. Those cells are special. They produce androstendione and testosterone. Androstendione and testosterone are actually male hormones. You know, bodybuilders use these hormones to get muscle bulk. You probably heard about those hormones. Sport doping uses testosterone. So, athletes build their muscles and trash their liver.
Rumors say that a famous Hollywood actor used hormones. Later he got liver transplant. Though he always denied use.
Anyway, female body converts androstendione into estrone (a weak estrogen). Fat cells do this. Estrone is a female hormone already.
Basically any body produces androgens (andros = man) and estrogens (female hormones). Just proportion of those hormones makes us male or female.
The cycle happens in normal person as well.
The estrone stimulates pituitary secretion of LH. Pituitary is a small gland in you brain. Pea Size. It's small, but it sooooo powerful.
Pituitary has another name - hypophysis. Hypo means down, phys means growth, so this gland is growing from below rest of brain. Pituitary gets bunch of connections from hypothalamus. Hypothalamus means “below thalamus”. These two areas of brain regulate almost all hormone production in organism.
Higher levels in brain hierarchy regulate them.
Hypophysis gets a command. Then it produces some intermediate messengers and hormones. The hormones go into blood and control whole body.
Hormones are like orders, like messages to rest of body.
Brain may give quick orders: Signals go through nerves. It is like a phone order or cablegram.
Brain also regulates organism through hormones. This is like a mail order. Sort of if brain sends letters by regular mail. The hypophysis is Post Office in this case.
PCOS kicks in when a woman is obese. There are more fat cells to convert androstendione to estrone. Estrone has such effect that it stimulates pituitary secretion of LH. LH in its turn goes back to those theca lutein cells we discussed and turns them on again, to produce more androstendione, which is again converted into estrone.
Self-amplifying cycle
In addition, that increased level of testosterone causes hirsutism (she becomes hairy like a male) and acne in female. In a normal person this cycle is probably designed to support development of fetus. Estrogen helps placenta to grow. Placenta supports fetal growth.
However, in a person with PCOD cycle is going out of normal control. In this case LH causes growth of cysts in ovaries.
Why?
Because corpus luteum cyst is partially made by overgrowth of those theca lutein cells. LH stimulates theca lutein cells. Also, women with PCOS have intolerance to glucose (sugar) and resistance to insulin. It means there is a lot of insulin (hormone that helps to utilize glucose mainly).
However excessive insulin does not work. Either receptors to insulin do not work or something else, but glucose is not utilized. Hence, energy inside cells drops. Hence, a big pile of other problems mounts. As if it is Diabetes Mellitus. Diabetes is a different topic of discussion. For us, it is worthwhile to mention that people with diabetes are very much prone to any infection.
