Oral contraceptives ‘may cut diabetes risk in PCOS’
Observational data suggest a need for randomised controlled trials to test such an intervention, researchers say
Combined oral contraceptive pills may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and prediabetes by more than a quarter in women with polycystic ovary syndrome, a database study suggests.
The cohort study is also the largest to confirm that polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is associated with double the risk of developing diabetes.
Researchers drew on primary care medical records from 64,000 women with PCOS and 123,500 matched controls (mean age 30.5, median BMI 25.6kg/m2) in The Health Improvement Network UK database to compare the risk of incident diabetes and prediabetes.
Over a median follow-up of 3.4 years, 0.45% of women with PCOS developed dysglycaemia, a composite of the two conditions.
