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Originally Posted by KatCarney  I'm not aware of anyone suggesting that ED's actually 'cause' pcos. |
From
Are Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and Eating Disorders Related? Researchers have investigated whether women with BN are insulin resistant and examined the relationship between insulin and androgen levels, ovarian morphology, and severity of bulimic behavior.4 Although their study did not find that women with BN had insulin resistance, they did find that they were chronically hyperinsulinemic, with 10 of 12 normal weight subjects having polycystic ovaries.4 This leads researchers to speculate that hyperinsulinemia may be one reason why BN and PCOS are connected, with the bulimic pattern of bingeing followed by starvation and/or vomiting perpetuating the insulin response and leading to the development of polycystic ovaries.4 It may also suggest why some women who are overweight or obese develop PCOS through overfeeding.
There is some encouraging news: It appears that when women with PCOS and BN can return to normalized eating patterns with treatment involving cognitive behavioral therapy, it can result in improved ovarian morphology.6 Thus, chronic bingeing can worsen the appearance of polycystic ovaries, but ovarian morphology does seem to resolve when bingeing ceases and normal eating patterns are established.
If bulimia can bring about the cysts and irregular cycles, and recovery can make the ovaries go back to normal and cycles return, it seems to me like someone is suggesting a possible cause. Maybe it's not the cause for everyone, and maybe recovery doesn't make everyone normal, but a link has been seen, and if getting over the bulimia helps things, it doesn't seem far fetched to say that in some, the bulimia causes the PCOS.
One problem with knowing is so many girls develop EDs right around when their periods start, so a lot of women don't even know what normal is for their bodies. They only know their hormonal profiles under the effects of the ED. My ED started about a year after my periods and I hated my periods so I didn't pay much mind to them other than to hope they'd stop for some reason. And hey I got my wish! It's a huge status thing in the ED world to not have periods - you're not REALLY sick if you still have periods. So when my periods stopped altogether, I was glad. I didn't think about what it could have meant. I figured it meant I was doing my eating disorder right.
I do see IR in my family tree - but I know when I am doing well I do have periods and my body behaves normally enough. So had I not gone all-out bulimic, maybe I never wouldn't have gotten full-blown PCOS. Which means, maybe the bulimia caused my PCOS. I don't know for sure that it did, but no one can say for sure that it didn't.