Making her first appearance on director producer Karan Johar’s popular chat show Koffee with Karan, actor Sara Ali Khan spoke about her battle with PCOS or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. It’s often also referred to as PCOD.
Sara Ali Khan is the daughter of actors Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh.
While talking about her battle with weight, the actor said, “I was 96 kgs, and I had PCOD. Because of that, I put on the amount of weight that I did. And it made it very hard for me to lose weight.”
PCOS affects 1 in 10 women in India. It often impairs fertility, alters the period cycle, causes weight gain, even diabetes, acne and excessive body hair.
What is PCOS?
PCOS or the polycystic ovary syndrome, is a metabolic disorder that results in hormonal imbalance. In order to get a diagnosis, one must have two out of the three of the following conditions: Elevated androgen levels, absent or irregular menstruation, and/or 12 or more ovarian cysts.
PCOS is genetic and presents differently in each woman. For some, symptoms emerge shortly after they begin menstruating. Others may not show any symptoms until later in life, or after substantial weight gain, and many don’t receive a diagnosis until they are struggling to get pregnant.
Since there is no one test for PCOS, doctors say it remains severely under-diagnosed.
According to a recent study, women diagnosed with PCOS are twice as likely to be hospitalized for heart disease, diabetes, mental-health conditions, reproductive disorders, and cancer of the uterine lining. And if you calculate the cost of evaluating and providing care to women with PCOS, it will run in to millions.
Treatment
While there is no cure, PCOS is treatable. There’s a variety of lifestyle options you can practice in order to keep the symptoms down.
Weight loss is the first line of intervention most doctors recommend for women suffering with PCOS. Losing just about 10% of body fat, will reduce the PCOS symptoms by a massive 75%.
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