Short Wave - Why renaming this common hormonal disorder is a huge deal

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

You probably know someone who has a condition that, until last week, was known as PCOS, or polycystic ovary syndrome. It affects one in eight reproductive-aged women. But despite it being such a common disorder, patients are often misdiagnosed and have delayed treatment. Now, medical professionals are trying to change that. After 15 years of work, the condition has been renamed to PMOS, or polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome. The new name reflects the real driver of the condition: disruptions in hormones. But how much can changing a name really do? Click here to access resources about PMOS in multiple languages. Interested in more science? Email us your question at [e-mail] to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. What's in a name? Seriously, because that's the question at the heart of today's episode on PCOS, polycystic ovary syndrome. For nearly the last decade and a half, Dr. Helena Teed, an endocrinologist at Monash University, has been pushing to rename PCOS, a condition that affects roughly one and eight reproductive-aged women.

Because the name, it comes. with some big problems. For one, the cis in the name aren't actually cis. A hundred years ago when they were operating on women, they saw what they thought was cysts on the ovary that are not actually abnormal cyst. And then later when they did ultrasound, they saw the same thing. And science had not caught up at that time and discovered what they really were. Their tiny immature follicles in people's ovaries. But even if they were cis, those aren't the primary issues for this condition and aren't even required for a diagnosis. Because

because the condition is driven by an array of hormonal disruptions, which means... The old name was fundamentally incorrect. So as of May 12, 2026, say goodbye to PCOS and say hello to... PMOS, or polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome. It's a name that captures the latest understanding of this disorder. It's genetic. And with it, people's hormones are disrupted, which, you know, Yes, can disrupt ovaries and reproductive health,

but it can also disrupt lots of other things, like your metabolism, your skin, your mental health, so much more than just ovaries. And Helena says the issues with calling this condition PCOS was also clear to her when working with her patients. You can imagine that saying to a young woman, you've got this disorder called polycystic ovary syndrome, but it's not your ovaries and you don't have real abnormal cysts.

And it's not a primary ovary condition. but we'll call a polycystic ovary syndrome. Another big problem is the disease's name dictates what research can be done about it. When you put it in a box, it means that any research that has done tends to be funded from that box about that box. There has been no medications ever developed in this condition specifically for anything other than the infertility features because there's been no research around there. When you don't do research, you don't have evidence, and education information is woefully inadequate. And that's had really. consequences. According to the World Health Organization, up to 70% of people with a condition are

undiagnosed. It's been a big motivator for Helena in the years-long push to rename PCOS. And she says changing the name is only the beginning. Her goal? Completely reclassifying the condition. So more research is done, better education that's broader, better care, better outcomes. And that couldn't happen without the new name. Today on the show, PCOS reimagined as PMOS. Plus, what that means for people with the condition and beyond. I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. So, Helena, if you could just kind of give us a picture, what is it like for a patient with this condition?

So often they are not necessarily recognized as having the condition. So, for example, a young adolescent woman will come in and she knows she's putting on a bit more. more weight than her peers and often around her middle. So it's a body shape change. Then increased body hair in areas that females don't normally increase their body hair. They can get thinning of their scalp hair. They get increased acne. They can get increased pigmentation. All of those things affect the physical appearance of a young adolescent woman who therefore can be quite affected by that. They also have irregular cycles. And so they're not the same as their appears at the same time. The other problem is they have really high prevalence of anxiety.

They have increased mood disturbance and depression with this condition. So they are not feeling great about themselves often. They don't understand all of these changes. Right. I can imagine it's already stressful to get this like unclear diagnosis. And then I read that often the treatment is birth control. But if that's also not explained, that's confusing too, right? Yeah. So they often start on the oral contraceptive pill or birth control. and they don't understand why. And then they think that's just for contraception. And there's a bit of pushback in the social media about the birth control pill or oral contraceptive pill. And in this condition, that's a big problem because it's not working necessarily because

it's a birth control pill. It actually is a really effective way to regulate the hormones in this condition. And therefore, quite an effective way to tread a lot of those features we just discussed. But it takes time to work. So if women think they're just being placated by being put on the birth control without understanding it's actually a hormone treatment for their condition. That's a real problem. Then there's other medications that moderate the hormones that they're often not offered, like metformin, which regulates insulin. So there's a range of medications that regulate the hormones, and it's important that you understand the condition is hormonal before you regulate those hormones. Okay, so I understand that the treatments for PMOS are different depending on whether a patient wants to get

pregnant in the future or not. So what is that wider set of options? Yeah, so it does involve the contraceptive pill, which is a hormonal treatment, not necessarily just for contraception. Metformin, which addresses the insulin resistance. Anti-androgens can have a role, and they address the androgen excess, although the birth control pill does that very effectively. Laser therapy is really good at controlling some of the skin symptoms, as well as other treatments specifically for acne. But when we come to infertility, in this condition, really important message is that the majority of women, with this condition, it will be able to have a family if they seek to have one. And so often, young women were told, oh, you've got this polycystic ovary syndrome, and that means you won't be able to have a family, which is devastating for a young woman and incorrect. We know from the research that most of them only need tablet treatment to improve their fertility, not expensive IVF.

The medication therapy is not that difficult, and they often don't need to go on to tougher and more expensive forms of infertility treatment. But if they don't know that they've got the condition, they often plan their family a bit too late, and then you've got age-related effects on top of that, and the infertility doesn't get treated in a timely way, and they have higher risk of not having children. That's fascinating.

So basically, if they aren't diagnosed soon enough, like there's just this cascade of issues that will affect them as they get closer to, like, perimetopause and stuff like that. Yeah. It is really disempowering if they don't know about the condition and they don't understand what's happened to them and they don't understand the treatments that are relevant. So Helena, it's taken over a decade to change the name of this condition to PMOS. Why did you fight so long for it? As a doctor, you work with people with

the condition and for so long you see them neglected, they struggle with trying to make the critical changes needed in terms of getting their care. And that means that day in day out, I was exposed to the frustrations of the people I was caring for, but not just that. I had done research around the world on delayed diagnosis, dissatisfaction with care, poor provider experience, poor patient experience. Everyone was frustrated. So in doing the research that showed the problem, and then in leading the guideline, which pulled all the evidence together

and just fundamentally showed this was just a wrong name, which was just harmful to everyone. So that's where we joined up with the patient. groups and the health professional groups around the world and went on this journey together. So previous efforts to change the name have failed. Why do you think this time it was different? The most important reason it has changed this time is because the critical evidence of science has just got so compelling now. We cannot agree ignore it. Secondly, we brought everyone together. The question before was who had the right or the authority? What gives someone the right to change the name

of a condition. There's so many different disciplines, so many different countries. And it couldn't just be one society or it couldn't just be one group because it's such a diverse condition. Previously, they'd not been enough engagement of patients with the condition. And that's really important because they have been quite frustrated with delayed diagnosis and people not listening to them for a long time. So building that trust and rapport and making sure they understood this was with them for them and by them. not to them. And that is a huge difference. So here we brought together all of the disciplines around all of the world regions, major engagement of patients and patient groups, and ended up with

22,000 survey responses in the multiple surveys and then published it in the most prominent medical journal. Yeah. You talk about this like listening to patients and like taking this survey. What did they tell you that informed this decision? Like what really stood out? it's even the research before that where we had asked how long it took them to get diagnosed. I mean, different health professionals they had to see. What was their experience of care, good, bad or otherwise? Where did they get their information from? What was their experience?

And it was woeful. Diagnosis can take two or three different providers. When they were diagnosed, they were just put on the pill and put in the ovary box. And all these other features they had were neglected. And it is really, um, an indictment, unfortunately, that that historical framing and the system we have of putting something in a box, which means we don't research anything outside that, we don't provide education outside that, we don't create care pathways outside that, has really done women

a disservice. And I have absolutely no doubt that it happened because it was women's health. And it happened in the context of the historical problems we have with listening, recognizing and addressing issues in women's self more broadly. Yeah. It seems rare, for a condition to get a whole new name. And I imagine it's pretty hard to get everyone on board with this huge change. Can you tell me more about you and your colleague's plan on implementing this change across the globe? Yeah, so the implementation is important. First of all, we have funding and resources, which are important. You can't just change your name. We have social media expertise and reach. We have media expertise and reach. We have people who are patient involvement

experts, cultural and linguistic diverse experts in this space. We also have of experts in lived experience on the journey. The steps are actually not difficult. It quite literally is a cascade of change the coding with the WHO, which is already in progress, changing the international guidelines. That's relatively easy because I lead those. Then there's a whole range of activities such as all the textbooks need to change, all the curriculum in all the universities, and that's already underway,

all the training in the colleges. The resources are already produced in, I think, 20 different languages. We've written to all the major research funders, and a whole range of journals have been notified to make sure that they only published papers, that are PMOS brackets, formerly PCOS, to make sure that that changes in research, but still retains historical links to all the work that's been done before is not lost. So it's not just fixing the name. It's actually making sure we go much broader to all the features where there is poor awareness. Wow. How do you feel? Like this has gotten to a point where it's actually

happening, right? Are you optimistic about the future? Yeah, it's unstoppable now. And recognizing that it is a necessary but not sufficient change really is critical. Once you get to this point, you now know that all the other things can cascade. But if we had not made this change, we just couldn't do it. We couldn't reclassify. We couldn't get the awareness. We couldn't get the acknowledgement of the broader condition. So I was incredibly proud to have the privilege of leading both of the international guidelines, to have made the contributions to research and knowledge on the condition that we've been able to do with colleagues around the world, especially understanding the poor experience that these women have and the features that they suffer

with that are ignored. And then to have the opportunity to walk hand in hand with those with lived experience who've co-led this with us has been so critical. So yes, I am feeling very optimistic that this can only get better and really needed to take a step change to get Well, Helena, congratulations on the success, and thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you so much. If you like this episode, share it with your friends. It really helps us out, and it helps us meet your friends. This episode was produced by Arun Nair, edited by our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez and Tyler Jones Check the Facts.

I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Shortwave from NPR.