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November
11, 2002
Northwestern
Receives $5 Million to Study Polycystic Ovary Syndrome
CHICAGO
--- Northwestern University has been awarded over $5 million by
the National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women’s
Health to establish a Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) to study
polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a disorder associated with irregular
menstrual periods, infertility, excessive body hair and increased
risk for diabetes. The SCORs represent an important new NIH initiative
in women’s health.
Northwestern
was one of 11 leading medical institutions selected as SCOR sites
on the basis of having at least three highly meritorious research
projects that explore an important issue related to sex/gender health
differences.
Andrea
Dunaif, M.D., Charles F. Kettering Professor and chief of endocrinology
and metabolism and professor of medicine at The Feinberg School
of Medicine, is the principal investigator on the SCOR, which will
focus on the role of genes, androgens [male hormones] and intrauterine
environment in PCOS. The goal of the study is to elucidate the pathogenesis
of PCOS and provide the potential for molecular diagnosis of the
syndrome.
In
addition to Dunaif, who also will direct one of the four projects
comprising the SCOR, other Northwestern collaborators include Jon
Levine, professor of neurobiology and physiology at the Judd A.
and Marjorie Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences, who is the SCOR
co-director and a principal investigator on another of the projects,
as well as Feinberg School researchers Randall Barnes, M.D., associate
professor of obstetrics and gynecology; Boyd Metzger, M.D., professor
of medicine; and Margrit Urbanek, assistant professor of medicine.
Institutions
also participating in the SCOR are the Wisconsin Regional Primate
Research Center, Madison, Wisc.; the California Regional Primate
Research Center, University of California, Davis; and The University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
The
Agenda for Research on Women’s Health for the 21st Century,
written by the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health, identified
PCOS as an "endpoint disease state of high priority."
PCOS
is one of the most common disorders of premenopausal women, affecting
nearly 10 percent of this population. It is associated with elevated
levels of androgens, as well as irregular menstrual periods and
reproductive problems. Other symptoms of PCOS include obesity, excess
hair on the face and body, male-pattern baldness and severe, chronic
acne.
Many
women with PCOS are insulin-resistant, a condition that raises the
level of insulin circulating in the body and is a precursor to type
2 diabetes. In fact, women with PCOS have seven times the risk of
other women for developing adult-onset diabetes, which in turn greatly
increases their chance of having cardiovascular disease, hypertension,
stroke and kidney problems. Dunaif’s research also has shown
that PCOS is an important risk factor for the adult form of diabetes
in teenaged girls.
There
is likely an increased risk for breast cancer -- another condition
reported to be associated with insulin resistance -- in women with
PCOS, Dunaif said. Similarly, there are limited data to suggest
that girls at risk for PCOS have a history of intrauterine growth
retardation, another finding associated with insulin resistance,
she said.
Dunaif
and colleagues have shown that PCOS has a substantial negative impact
on quality of life because of the disorder’s multisystem conditions.
In addition, because obesity and type 2 diabetes have now reached
epidemic proportions in the United States, and cardiovascular disease
remains the leading cause of death in women, PCOS plays a key role
in the foremost causes of death and disability in American women.
Moreover,
Dunaif and co-investigators have found that the brothers as well
as the sisters of women with PCOS have metabolic and hormonal abnormalities.
They have identified a region on chromosome 19 -- near the insulin
receptor gene -- that appears to contain a major gene for PCOS.
These
gene studies, led by Dunaif, were funded by an earlier, $6 million
research grant from National Institutes of Health’s National
Centers Program for Infertility Research.
Collaborating
on the gene studies were Urbanek, Ralph Kazer, M.D., professor of
obstetrics and gynecology and chief of reproductive endocrinology
at the Feinberg School and researchers from Pennsylvania State University
and the University of Pennsylvania.
Dunaif
and Kazer also are co-directors of a PCOS Center that was established
at the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation earlier this year.
Women
between 18 and 45 with PCOS or with six or fewer menstrual periods
a year may receive information about participating in these research
studies by calling 1-800-847-6060 or e-mailing pcos@northwestern.edu.
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