Dr. Jeffrey Bland explains why PCOS is being renamed polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) in 2026. The condition is actually a metabolic and immune disorder marked by androgen excess and insulin resistance, not primarily an ovarian problem. The new name, endorsed by the Lancet, opens doors to treatments targeting the root causes.
I'm Dr. Jeffrey Bland, nutritional biochemist, and let me tell you about something that I've been concerned about for the better part of 30 years, and that is a woman's health problem that we used to call polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS. It is the most common hormonal condition found in menstruating women. It has a very significant problem as it relates to things like fertility and things like weight gain and things like hair loss and And so it's a condition that's associated with elevated levels of a hormone in a woman's body that are the androgen hormones, the androgen, not the estrogen hormones, but an imbalance of the androgen hormones. The principal one that we're familiar with is testosterone, and this condition has been called ovarian syndrome as if it has some kind of a specific-only focus on the ovaries. And I have been really against that model for many years because I thought it is way more than just ovarian cysts that cause this problem because it is polycystic ovaries and that seemed like a wrong name. So a number of years ago, now nearly 20 years ago, I was fortunate to be involved with a company really developing ways of trying to manage this condition in women and we had a very erudite group of advisors, Dr. Andrea Donev being one of the OB-GYNs on our board who is internationally recognized recognized along with Dr. Halini Teedi in terms of their expertise in this condition, and they were arguing very strongly that we should not stigmatize women by calling this polycystic ovarian syndrome because it kind of has a very negative application and implication, and quite honestly, this condition that women are experiencing is much more than just the cystic ovaries. In fact, women that experience this often don't have cystic ovaries, and other women that have cystic ovaries don't have the condition, and so the argument was that this is a complex polyendocrine disorder that had to do with things like insulin resistance and meta-inflammation. And we should be looking at this much more systemically in terms of how to manage the condition. And lo and behold, now before us in 2026 is this remarkable transition in which we're throwing away the term PCOS after 30 or more years, and now it's being replaced By the Dr. Andrew Danaev and Helen Nettiti et al. New definition that took them several years to get approved and through the medical process, and now it's according to the Lancet medical magazine, one of the peer group leaders in the field: polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome. Let me say it again: polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome. So that's PMOS. And no longer do we have cystic in this title, and now we are talking about a much more manageable condition, looking at it as an immunometabolic disorder, and that is a major breakthrough because it is going to allow new therapeutics, new lifestyle interventions, new nutritional approaches that get us away from this being tethered to ovarian cysts as the principal determinant of the condition. So this is, to me, a really major breakthrough for women's health. I think we're gonna see rapid advances now with unbridling ourselves from that old definition and now looking at it, a complex systems biology issue that is manageable in part by lifestyle, dietary interventions that are really gonna make a difference in the outcome. So stay tuned.
