RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIF. — Cardiovascular risk factors varied considerably by race and ethnicity in women with polycystic ovary syndrome in a large study presented by Dr. Seth L. Feigenbaum at the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society.
Dr. Feigenbaum, a reproductive endocrinologist in the San Francisco office of the Permanente Medical Group, and associates at the Kaiser Permanente Health Plan of Northern California compared 6,671 women aged 16–44 years who were diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) with 26,662 age-matched women in terms of three cardiovascular risk factors: obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.
Two-thirds of women with a diagnosis of PCOS were obese (a body mass index of 30 kg/m
Blacks were far more likely than Asians or Hispanics, and somewhat more likely than whites, to be hypertensive. Diabetes was most prevalent in Asians and Hispanics, followed by whites, then blacks. A multivariate regression analysis adjusting for variables showed distinct patterns:
▸ Asians had a twofold increased risk of diabetes, compared with whites.
▸ Blacks, by an odds ratio of 1.32, were considerably more likely than whites to have hypertension.
▸ Hispanics had higher rates of diabetes, but lower rates of hypertension than whites (OR1.33 and 0.68, respectively).