Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Smoking may be associated with changes in metabolic risk factors and sex hormones in PCOS.

Design: Retrospective trans-sectional study.

Patients: Six hundred and fifty caucasian premenopausal women with the diagnoses hirsutism or PCOS were divided according to smoking status: Non-smokers (NS-PCOS=390) and smokers (S-PCOS=260). 119 healthy women were studied as controls (NS-Control=105, S-Control=14).

Interventions: Clinical evaluation, hormone analyses, transvaginal ultrasound. Oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTT) and ACTH tests.

Main outcome measures: Clinical, metabolic, and endocrine parameters. ACTH stimulated cortisol and 17-hydroxyprogesterone (17OHP) levels.

Results: S-PCOS has significantly higher fasting lipid profile and 17OHP levels (basal and ACTH stimulated) than NS-PCOS patients, whereas prolactin levels were decreased. No significant differences were found in body composition and measures of insulin resistance between NS-PCOS and S-PCOS. PCO was more prevalent in NS-PCOS patients. During multiple regression analyses, smoking was positively associated with 17OHP and cholesterol, triglycerides, and low density lipoprotein and inversely associated with prolactin and high density lipoprotein.

Conclusion: Smoking was associated with increased adrenal responsiveness, decreased prolactin levels and a more adverse lipid profile in PCOS patients, whereas smoking was unassociated with body composition and insulin resistance. Smoking may be associated with the prevalence of individual Rotterdam criteria.