{"id":963058,"date":"2026-05-16T04:45:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T04:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/963058\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T04:45:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T04:45:28","slug":"pmos-and-pitfalls-of-personalized-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/963058\/","title":{"rendered":"PMOS and pitfalls of personalized health"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is Optimizer<\/a>, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song<\/a> that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they\u2019re going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A few days ago, my esthetician was smearing hot wax on my face. The two caterpillars I call eyebrows were in desperate need of taming \u2014 as was my lady \u2019stache. I hate this monthly ritual, but facial hair is a sore spot. Hirsutism is perhaps one of the few visual indicators of a condition that\u2019s plagued me for the past decade. Until this week, I\u2019ve always known it as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).<\/p>\n

Normally, I spend waxing sessions chattering away about the weather (it\u2019s sort of hard to have deep conversations when someone is ripping hair off your face). But that day, we spent the entire session talking about how the global medical establishment decided this week to rename PCOS to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome<\/a>, or PMOS.<\/p>\n

There are several reasons why. Despite the original name, PMOS \u2014 which affects roughly 170 million, or one in eight, women worldwide \u2014 often doesn\u2019t result in ovarian cysts. The updated name more accurately reflects how it\u2019s both a hormonal and metabolic condition, not purely a reproductive one. The reality is that the condition can impact multiple organs and is associated with other health conditions, like insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and obstructive sleep apnea. According to The New York Times<\/a>, focusing the name on one symptom of the condition \u2014 ovarian cysts \u2014 has led to inadequate clinical training, poorer research funding, delays in diagnosis, and fragmented care for people suffering with PMOS. In my experience, doctors have often told me that PMOS is benign and decline to offer treatment unless I want to actively pursue pregnancy.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, my esthetician also has PMOS. Except where she has ovarian cysts, I don\u2019t. I have insulin resistance; she doesn\u2019t. I struggle a bit with hirsutism, while she lamented about cystic acne. We both put on roughly 60 pounds out of nowhere, but she was able to get it under control through intermittent fasting, a specialized diet, and supplementing with milk thistle and myo-inositol, a type of carbohydrate that helps improve insulin sensitivity. Metformin \u2014 a diabetes drug that\u2019s used off-label to treat PMOS \u2014 did absolutely nothing for her, while it\u2019s an effective part of my treatment along with a GLP-1.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had this conversation with so many fellow PMOS sufferers over the years. We always marvel at how the same condition can manifest in such wildly different ways. And while we often swap tips, I\u2019ve never heard of a single treatment working for everyone I\u2019ve ever met with PMOS. Personally, I\u2019ve spent roughly 12 years at this point trying to get mine under control. It\u2019s the reason I first turned to wearables and health tech.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s the first thing I think about whenever a health tech company or wellness influencer pitches the idea of personalizing health.<\/p>\n

May is usually when my calendar starts filling up with meetings with the companies on my beat. It\u2019s the start of several conversations about what new products and features are on the docket, where they see this category evolving, and how they\u2019re thinking about current wellness trends. Of the half dozen I\u2019ve had so far this year, there\u2019s one concept that keeps coming up time and time again: personalized health.<\/p>\n

All the companies I\u2019ve spoken with agree that teasing out useful insights from a mountain of health data is confusing. But I\u2019m repeatedly told that by being smart about data, the holy grail is personalized health \u2014 meaning recommendations based on your individual health metrics versus generalized advice. A simple example might be if your heart rate variability metric shows good recovery, but you had a lousy night of sleep, a wearable device might recommend a moderate 20 minutes of vinyasa yoga as opposed to a high-intensity interval training workout. If you diligently log your meals, perhaps a health AI will identify that the roasted broccoli in your lunch is interacting with a medication and is the likely culprit behind your daily battle with sulfur burps. Depending on your CGM and blood test data, maybe your fitness tracker will one day tell you what supplements to take. And then, I\u2019m often told, you\u2019d have a lot more agency over your health.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an alluring premise. Health is highly individualized. Your genetics play a large role in what medications work for you, what conditions you\u2019re predisposed to, and even what sports your body might be best suited for. I can understand why health tech companies, big and small, are excited by this concept. But again, I have to point to my journey with PMOS.<\/p>\n

\"Person<\/a><\/p>\n

Parsing which data points matter most is always an uphill climb. Tagging can help but requires consistent effort on your part. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales \/ The Verge<\/p>\n

For better or worse, most doctors will tell someone with PMOS to try losing weight. The logic is that weight loss generally improves, or potentially reverses, symptoms. The only problem there is that it\u2019s a catch-22. Weight gain with PMOS is often related to insulin resistance, which in turn makes the simple \u201ccalories in, calories out\u201d logic much harder to enact because it triggers a vicious cycle. Higher insulin levels trigger excess androgen production, which in turn causes PMOS sufferers to store more abdominal fat. Studies have also shown that PMOS sufferers tend to have lower basal metabolic rates<\/a>. Meaning, everything else equal, they burn fewer calories a day than people without PMOS. The condition may also contribute to complications in building<\/a> lean muscle mass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have yet to find any fitness or nutrition feature that takes these factors into account. There\u2019s no button I can press to adjust recommendations or calorie burn estimates. (This is one reason why I don\u2019t recommend folks put too much stock into calorie tracking with fitness trackers.) The same often holds for reproductive health tech features. When it comes to predicting fertile windows, I usually can\u2019t even test these features because the algorithms aren\u2019t equipped to deal with hormonal birth control \u2014 another common treatment for PMOS (and for people with all sorts of other conditions!). Do these features account for how oral hormonal contraceptives can alter body temperatures<\/a>? Each health tech maker has their own proprietary algorithm, so you\u2019d have to ask each one.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this will be possible one day. Wearable tech is helping researchers discover new<\/a> correlations<\/a> between biometric data points, particularly in reproductive health. But as of right now, there are few personalized modes for people who deviate from the \u201cnorm\u201d that algorithms are built for. If you happen to fall into that category, \u201cpersonalized health\u201d often ends up being a series of ad hoc solutions you\u2019ve cobbled together yourself.<\/p>\n

Some of this is a timing issue. Generative AI is still relatively new, and companies are figuring out the limitations in real time. Plus, the human body remains, in large part, a mystery. It\u2019s hard to offer truly personalized health tech if even the medical experts are baffled by certain conditions. Perhaps most damning, good science takes a long time, whereas the push is for technology to move fast. PMOS was first officially identified in 1935, and only in 2026 does the name now accurately reflect the scope of the condition. (Even the renaming took 14 years and over 50 professional medical groups.) And yet, personalized health features are rolling out now. For some people, that might mean a relatively straightforward experience because they don\u2019t have particularly complicated health. For many others, it\u2019s an experience built on a foundation that\u2019s constantly shifting.<\/p>\n

For me, personalized health tech currently means a lot of elbow grease. I have to train the AI coach. I have to think deeply about the parameters of my PMOS and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. I have to decide which metrics I\u2019ve collected over the years are relevant to my needs. I have to do the independent research and subject myself to the torture of consulting multiple doctors. I have to do the trial and error of testing out available treatments. I spent an inordinate amount of time asking experts a lot of questions and then fact-checking the answers.<\/p>\n

\"Senior<\/a><\/p>\n

I spend a good portion of each day sifting through data, interpreting AI coach advice, and all I really want is my PMOS under control. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales \/ The Verge<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not trying to rain on personalized medicine\u2019s parade. I\u2019m cautiously optimistic about some health features I\u2019ve gotten sneak previews of. And there have been many times in the past 12 years when I would\u2019ve loved this sort of guidance. (Who knows, it might\u2019ve saved me from listening to that one quack doctor who insisted I take desiccated pig thyroid extract because they\u2019d misdiagnosed me with hypothyroidism.) I\u2019m hopeful that down the line, health tech companies may explore \u201calgorithmic modes\u201d to account for different diagnoses, medications, and other health idiosyncrasies.<\/p>\n

All I\u2019m saying is that health tech companies are going to start pitching this concept as it\u2019s possible now. As if it\u2019s just as simple as wearing a device and consulting an AI. And it just isn\u2019t. At least, not in the way you\u2019d likely want \u2014 in the background, with minimal effort on your part.<\/p>\n

And in the meantime, I guess I\u2019m going to research the milk thistle supplement my esthetician recommended.<\/p>\n

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