Читать книгу The Ultimate PCOS Handbook - Theresa Cheung - Страница 15

Your thyroid is a gland at the bottom of your neck. It weighs less than an ounce but has an enormous effect on your health. All aspects of your metabolism, from the rate at which your heart beats to how quickly you burn calories, are regulated by your thyroid hormones.

If your thyroid releases the proper amount of hormones, body systems function normally. But if your thyroid doesn’t produce enough it causes hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid), and upsets the delicate balance of chemical reactions in your body. Symptoms include fatigue, weight gain, irregular periods and high blood pressure (sound familiar?). If you’re overweight and have irregular periods and insulin resistance, it seems your risk of developing hypothyroidism is higher.

Many of the symptoms of hypothyroidism correspond with the symptoms of PCOS, and there do seem to be strong links between the two conditions. At present there just isn’t enough evidence to suggest that thyroid problems may have a causal link with PCOS, but early research¹⁰ suggests there may well be a connection of some kind.

An interesting study illustrated this by investigating the relationship between polycystic ovary syndrome, hypothyroidism and insulin-resistance and how, by submitting patients to a specific therapy for any one of these three problems, the researchers were able to obtain an improvement in the other associated conditions.¹¹

This study suggests that there are several ways to improve PCOS symptoms and increase fertility. If a single therapy can be effective, a combination might be even better.