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Metformin superior to myoinositol for metabolic parameters in PCOS
Women with polycystic ovary syndrome and overweight or obesity experienced greater improvements in hormonal, clinical and metabolic parameters after 6 months of treatment with metformin compared with myoinositol treatment, researchers recently reported.
Valentina Immediata, MD, of the department of obstetrics and gynecology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Italy, and colleagues evaluated 34 women (mean age, 25.62 years; BMI, 32.55 kg/m2) with PCOS randomly assigned to 6 months of metformin (80 mg twice per day) or myoinositol (1,000 mg twice per day) to determine the effects of each on hormonal, clinical and metabolic parameters. After a 3-month washout period, participants were switched to the other treatment method for 6 months.
All participants had oligomenorrhea, mild to moderate hirsutism and overweight or obesity at baseline.
Researchers obeserved decreases in body weight (P < .01), BMI (P < .01), androstenedione levels (P < .01), free androgen index (P < .05), serum anti-Müllerian hormone (P < .01), luteinizing hormone levels (P < .05) and estradiol levels (P < .05), and improvements in menstrual cycle frequency (P < .01) and Ferriman–Gallwey score (P < .05) after 6 months of treatment with metformin. Treatment with myoinositol did not result in significant improvements in clinical, anthropometric or hormonal parameters.
“Our study seems to suggest a clear advantage of metformin over myoinositol in overweight/obese hyperinsulinemic PCOS patients,” the researchers wrote. “The major weakness of this study, however, is the small sample size, and further randomized clinical trials are needed to compare the two molecules in a larger and more heterogenous PCOS population.” – by Amber Cox
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.