Episode #187: PCOS Has Been Renamed. Here’s Why It Changes Everything

Hi, and welcome back to the PCOS Repair Podcast.

Something big has happened in the world of PCOS. Maybe to you it doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but to me it’s kind of exciting. If you’ve been diagnosed with this condition—and I suspect you have since you’re here listening—or you know someone who has, PCOS, or polycystic ovarian syndrome, has officially been renamed.

After years of advocacy, research, and a global movement led largely by women with the condition themselves, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine has endorsed a new name. And this name change isn’t just cosmetic. It’s actually a fundamental shift in how this condition is understood, explained, and treated.

That’s what’s so exciting about it to me.

So today we’re going to talk about what this new name means, why it matters, and what it really brings to the table when it comes to PCOS health today.

Let’s take a step back and think about this condition and the women who have it—the symptoms they know so well.

Struggling for months or years with irregular periods, exhaustion, weight changes, skin issues, mood swings, cravings, and feeling out of control of their body, like they don’t really have much autonomy or say in their own health.

You finally get to the doctor. You finally realize something is off. You’ve been struggling for a long time, and maybe you start looking around and thinking, “This isn’t the case for other people. What is wrong with me?”

You finally figure out who to go see. You make an appointment. You have this excited, slightly nervous anticipation about what you’re going to learn.

You finally get to the doctor, you get some tests done—maybe an ultrasound—and then you hear the words:

“You have PCOS. Polycystic ovarian syndrome.”

For a brief moment there’s relief.

“Oh… great. Somebody knows what this is.”

“At least I’m not crazy.”

“This is real.”

“There’s actually a name for it.”

But then the appointment ends.

And you’re left with very little information about what PCOS actually is, what drives it, or what to do about it.

You’ve been diagnosed, but you don’t really feel like you have any more understanding.

That initial excitement of, “Great—they know what this is,” quickly turns into, “I have this label. I have something wrong with me. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

This is the gap between diagnosis and understanding.

It’s something I hear about constantly.

And it’s the gap that I work so hard to bridge through this podcast, through my programs, and through my work with women with PCOS.

Because understanding and labeling PCOS is only part of the journey.

In fact, the label really isn’t the important part.

That’s why, in some ways, the renaming itself isn’t actually the part that excites me the most.

What excites me is the understanding that led to the renaming.

It’s finally bridging the gap between figuring out what’s going on in our body, understanding our root causes, and then learning how to create an environment that supports healing.

What habits do we need?

What does our nutrition need to look like?

How should we move?

How do we support our body so it can heal from the root cause?

Now, we can’t cure our tendency toward PCOS.

But we absolutely can create an environment that supports our body and reverses the symptoms.

This gap between diagnosis and understanding isn’t individual women’s fault.

It’s actually an area where medicine has failed us.

So let’s talk about why the name polycystic ovarian syndrome was always problematic.

“Polycystic” means many cysts.

“Ovarian” points toward the ovaries as the source of the problem.

“Syndrome” simply means a collection of symptoms.

So essentially the name communicates that you have cysts on your ovaries, and that’s what’s causing all of your symptoms.

Except… there are several significant problems with that.

Problem number one:

Many women diagnosed with PCOS never actually have ovarian cysts.

The diagnostic criteria includes three markers, and you only need two of them to receive the diagnosis.

Cysts are only one of those markers.

So a significant number of women walking around with a diagnosis of PCOS literally have no cysts.

And yet… that’s the entire name of the condition.

Kind of strange, right?

Problem number two:

The ovaries are not the origin of the problem.

They are responding to signals from elsewhere in the body.

Blaming the ovaries for PCOS is like blaming your smoke alarm for a fire.

The alarm is going off.

But it didn’t start the fire.

It’s simply telling you that something is happening.

Problem number three:

The name completely omits the systems actually driving the condition.

Your metabolic system.

Your insulin system.

Your endocrine system.

Stress physiology.

Inflammation.

Hormonal communication throughout the body.

None of that was captured in the words polycystic ovarian syndrome.

The consequences of this are real.

You might wonder why the name matters.

Here’s why.

For years, PCOS was reduced from a complex, long-term endocrine and metabolic condition into a misunderstanding centered around cysts and ovaries.

This contributed to delayed diagnosis, missed diagnosis, and inadequate treatment for millions of women.

Some providers would perform an ultrasound and say,

“Well, you don’t really have cysts.”

Or,

“Your labs are borderline.”

“So I don’t think this really counts.”

As a result, so many women who actually had PCOS were never diagnosed.

This isn’t a small issue.

Women’s health has been failing women on a very large scale.

So let’s talk about what this new name actually means—and how we got here.

The American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) has officially endorsed renaming PCOS.

Now, maybe it isn’t officially renamed everywhere just yet, but we’re moving through that process.

At the very least, we’re continuing the conversation, and major research organizations dedicated to women’s health are recognizing that it’s time to rethink this diagnosis.

I want to pause here because I think the story behind this name change is actually really powerful.

This wasn’t simply a committee of doctors sitting around a boardroom making a decision.

This was a global movement.

The new name was developed through an engagement process involving 56 patient organizations and professional societies worldwide.

There was a survey with more than 22,000 responses.

Multiple workshops were conducted with healthcare professionals and women living with the condition.

And here’s the part I find most meaningful:

Women with PCOS were the biggest drivers of this name change.

That is extraordinary in medicine.

For so long this condition was overlooked.

Women essentially had to stand up together and say,

“This isn’t working.”

“We don’t feel supported.”

“We deserve better.”

And excitingly…

the medical community listened.

This condition affects at least one in eight women.

Some research now estimates closer to one in six.

Either way…

that’s an enormous number of women.

More than 170 million women worldwide.

For decades, most of them were handed a diagnosis that told them almost nothing accurate about what was actually happening inside their bodies.

The proposed new name is PMOS.

And I truly believe this changes everything.

Let’s break it down.

Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome.

“Poly” still means many.

But now it refers to many endocrine and metabolic systems—not many cysts.

“Endocrine” refers to our hormone communication network.

Immediately, this tells us that multiple hormone systems are involved—not just the ovaries.

“Metabolic” acknowledges our metabolism.

Blood sugar regulation.

Insulin.

Inflammation.

Energy production.

Stress physiology.

All of the systems that we now know are central to this condition.

Then we have “ovarian.”

The ovaries absolutely are involved.

But notice the shift.

We’re no longer talking about cysts.

We’re acknowledging the ovaries as one of the organs affected—not the source of the disease.

We’ve talked about this before.

Insulin.

Blood sugar.

Stress.

Inflammation.

All of these tell the ovaries to produce excess androgens.

The ovaries are central to many of the symptoms.

But they are responding to signals.

They are not the root cause.

And finally, “syndrome” remains because this truly is a collection of symptoms.

You may not have every symptom.

But when we begin seeing this cluster of symptoms together, it should raise the question of whether PMOS is the underlying diagnosis.

This new name tells a completely different story.

It tells you the endocrine system is involved.

It tells you metabolism is central.

It tells you this is a whole-body condition that affects the ovaries rather than beginning with them.

The ovaries become one piece of a much larger story.

Now, I want to pause here for a moment because if any of this is resonating with you—if you’re starting to think differently about your own symptoms and what might actually be driving them—I want to point you toward something that may really help you as you navigate your PCOS journey.

That’s my free PCOS Root Cause Quiz.

And yes, I know I’m still using the name PCOS. I probably will for quite a while because it’s what people recognize, and it’s going to take time for PMOS to become familiar. I’ll slowly begin incorporating the new terminology into my conversations, but for now I’ll continue using PCOS so people immediately know what we’re talking about.

The quiz is designed to help you start understanding your specific symptom patterns, which systems may be most involved, and what your body may actually be responding to.

Because PMOS is not one-size-fits-all.

Every woman’s picture looks a little different, and understanding your individual drivers is where real clarity begins.

You’ll find the link in the show notes below.

But let’s keep going with today’s conversation.

Now let’s talk about what this renamed condition actually means for understanding your symptoms, because this is where things become empowering.

At the end of the day, a name is just a name.

What really matters is understanding what’s happening in your body, what your body is asking for, what’s working, what’s not working, and what you can do to change your environment so your body can thrive and function the way it was designed to.

Let’s think through the full symptom picture of PMOS.

Irregular or absent periods are connected to disrupted hormonal communication between the brain and the ovaries. They’re driven by our metabolic and endocrine systems.

Fatigue and energy crashes are driven by blood sugar dysregulation and insulin resistance—both metabolic issues. They can also occur when our stress response system is dysregulated.

Cravings, particularly for sugar, carbohydrates, or salt, are a downstream effect of unstable blood sugar or elevated cortisol.

Mood changes such as anxiety, low mood, or depression are influenced by cortisol regulation, as well as many of the hormones and neurotransmitters connected to that pathway, including GABA, serotonin, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. These are often influenced by our cortisol system.

Skin issues like acne are driven by elevated androgens, which are commonly stimulated by insulin. Inflammation and chronic stress can also contribute because both raise insulin levels, which then signal the ovaries to produce more androgens.

Hair thinning and unwanted hair growth are also driven primarily by excess androgens.

Weight changes can be influenced by many different systems, but insulin, inflammation, and chronic stress all play major roles in weight regulation.

Inflammation is woven throughout the entire condition.

It amplifies every other system, and every other system can amplify inflammation when it’s out of balance.

If we’re dealing with elevated insulin, excess weight, elevated androgens, chronic stress, or unstable blood sugar, inflammation rises.

Then that increased inflammation further worsens those same systems.

This is where we get that vicious cycle.

The encouraging news is that the opposite is also true.

As we begin improving even one of these areas, we begin interrupting that cycle.

That’s why we focus on our primary root cause first.

When we improve that one major driver, we often begin seeing positive movement across multiple symptoms at the same time.

None of these symptoms are random.

They’re connected.

They’re all flowing through these same underlying endocrine and metabolic systems we’ve been talking about with this name change.

Once you understand that, your symptoms stop feeling like your body is attacking you.

Instead, they begin making sense.

They become information.

They become signals worth paying attention to instead of something to simply suppress or punish.

I want to speak directly to those of you who have spent years feeling confused or dismissed by the medical system.

If you were told PCOS was simply about your ovaries and sent home with a prescription and very little explanation…

you weren’t failed by your body.

You were failed by incomplete information.

What I wish I had been told when I was first diagnosed is that PCOS—now becoming PMOS—is fundamentally a metabolic and endocrine condition.

It’s deeply responsive to its environment.

Your body is responding to the environment it’s living in.

When you begin changing that environment through nourishment, blood sugar support, stress reduction, targeted supplementation, movement, sleep, and recovery, your body responds in remarkable ways.

Not because you finally worked hard enough.

But because you finally gave your body what it had been asking for all along.

You finally understood how to listen.

You learned how to create an environment that supports your body’s unique needs so it can heal, regain vitality, and become the healthiest version of itself.

This is why I think the name change opens the door for women who are newly diagnosed to receive better information right from the beginning.

It also gives healthcare providers a much better framework for understanding the condition.

Because most providers haven’t personally lived with PMOS.

They’re working from what they learned in school.

And honestly, when I was in PA school, PCOS received less than half a page in my medical textbook.

Less than half a page.

Yet we’re talking about a condition that affects at least one in eight women.

You can see how underprepared many providers have been to manage something this common and this complex.

Understanding your physiology isn’t about creating fear or overwhelm.

It’s about finally having the right map.

Because when you have the right map, you can finally navigate toward feeling good in your own body.

As we wrap up today, I want to thank you for being here.

Thank you for learning more about PCOS.

Thank you for wanting to understand what’s happening in your body.

And thank you for being part of a movement that is finally changing how this condition is viewed.

This episode genuinely matters to me because of how many women around the world are affected by this condition and how much that original diagnosis shapes the way we think about ourselves and our health.

The name change—and the growing understanding behind it—is a really big deal.

I’m incredibly grateful that it’s happening.

But at the end of the day, as exciting as this global movement is, my goal with this podcast has always been much more personal.

I want to help you.

I want to help you understand your body.

I want to help you know what it’s asking for.

I want to help you create an environment where your body can heal and thrive.

If you have questions or topics you’d like me to cover, I’d love to hear from you over on Instagram. You can find me @NourishedToHealthy.

And if you’re ready to go beyond the podcast and really map out your own healing journey, I encourage you to check out the PCOS Root Cause Bootcamp.

You can join the waitlist through the link in the show notes below.

I pour an incredible amount of time and energy into that program because, as much as I love seeing the medical community beginning to understand this condition more accurately, what matters most to me is helping you understand your body and giving you practical tools to create lasting change.

The podcast gives you the big picture.

The Bootcamp allows me to guide you through your own unique symptoms and root causes in a much more personalized way than a podcast ever could.

If that sounds like what you’re looking for, I’d love to have you join us.

Until next time, I hope you found today’s episode helpful.

If you did, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you get notified each and every week when a new episode becomes available.

And until then…

Bye for now.