If you have PCOS, get your symptoms under control at an earlier age to help reduce your chances of having complications like diabetes and heart disease.

Between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 women of childbearing age has PCOS. As many as 5 million women in the United States may be affected. It can occur in girls as young as 11 years old. There is no single test to diagnose PCOS and because there is no cure for PCOS, it needs to be managed to prevent problems.

If you feel so weary or lethargic that you can’t do particular activities as well or as often as you once did, it’s important to make an appointment.

Even though fatigue is one of the most common medical complaints, you may feel hesitant about making a doctor’s appointment just to say you lack energy. But don’t wait until you’re so tired you can’t get out of bed before seeing a doctor. Perhaps you used to play golf once a week without any problem, but now you get winded during the course of the game. Or maybe, by the end of the day, you often feel too tired to cook dinner or go out to a movie. These are good reasons to see a doctor.

Your liver makes all the #cholesterol your body needs.

The cholesterol in your blood comes from two sources: the foods you eat and your liver. It is important to have what is called a full lipid profile to show the actual levels of each type of fat in your blood. Blood cholesterol, however, is very specific to each individual. The full lipid profile is an important part of your medical history and important information for your physician to have. #JohnsHopkins

http://bit.ly/1vHijGa

Low levels of glucose in the blood interfere with the function of many organ systems. #MerckManual

The brain is particularly sensitive to low glucose levels, because sugar is the brain's major energy source. If the glucose levels in the blood fall far below their usual range, the brain responds by stimulating the adrenal glands to release epinephrine (adrenaline) and cortisol, the pancreas to release glucagon, and the pituitary gland to release growth hormone, all of which cause the liver to release glucose into the blood.

http://bit.ly/1wyliHq

Several of the most common forms of cancer are linked to sex hormones.

Fatty foods affect the body in many ways and have a strong influence on hormonal activity in the body. First, high-fat diets increase the amount of estrogens, the female sex hormones, in the blood. It is known that many breast tumors are "fueled" by estrogens. On high-fat diets, estrogen levels increase. When women adopt low-fat diets, their estrogen levels drop noticeably in a very short time. Vegetarians have significantly lower estrogen levels than non-vegetarians, in part because of the lower fat content of their diet. In addition, they have more of certain carrier molecules, called sex hormone binding globulin, which circulate in the blood and have the job of holding onto sex hormones, keeping them inactive until they are needed. Fatty foods do the reverse: they increase estrogens and reduce the amount of the carrier molecule that is supposed to keep estrogens in check.

http://bit.ly/1trPcG9

Heart Disease/Lipid Disorders

A comprehensive blood work-up helps in the early detection and prevention of heart disease and should include a breakdown of HDL and LDL into sub particles*, homocysteine, lipoprotein a, C-reactive protein, fasting blood glucose and fasting insulin levels. An electrocardiogram (EKG) and a non-invasive heart scan also helps to give a more complete picture of heart health. *Individuals with increased amounts of small dense LDL sub particles and low levels of HDL 2b sub particles are at a higher risk of heart disease than individuals with large LDL sub particles and higher levels of HDL 2b sub particles.