Cardiovascular Profile of Pharmacological Agents Used for the Management of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

    January 2019 in “ Therapeutic Advances in Endocrinology and Metabolism ”
    Huda Alalami, Thozhukat Sathyapalan, Stephen L. Atkin
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    TLDR Medications for PCOS don't seem to raise heart disease risk.
    The 2019 review assessed the cardiovascular impact of medications used to manage polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). It found that while women with PCOS are at increased risk for conditions like prediabetes and type 2 diabetes (T2DM), which may lead to cardiovascular events, the medications themselves, including oral contraceptives, antiandrogens, clomiphene, and diabetes-specific drugs like metformin, glitazones, dipeptidyl peptidase IV inhibitors, and glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, do not appear to increase cardiovascular risk. Metformin may help prevent gestational diabetes, but no medical intervention has been proven to prevent diabetes onset in PCOS patients. Some drugs, such as flutamide and pioglitazone, show potential cardiovascular benefits, but their long-term effects are uncertain. Incretin mimetics and SGLT2 inhibitors have cardiovascular benefits in T2D but have not been extensively studied in PCOS. Clomiphene may protect against cardiac arrhythmias. Overall, the direct role of newer diabetes therapies in treating PCOS needs further evaluation, but current therapies do not seem to increase cardiovascular risk.
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