PCOS has an official new name. What a welcome change!

For decades, PCOS stood for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. The problem? Many women and people with ovaries who "had" PCOS never had a single cyst. The name pointed doctors and patients in the wrong direction.

As of 12 May 2026, the condition is officially renamed PMOS, Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (Teede et al., 2026). Here is what each part means:

• Poly = many
• Endocrine = to do with hormones
• Metabolic = how your cells make and use energy
• Ovarian = the ovaries, which make oestrogen, testosterone and progesterone
• Syndrome = a group of signs and symptoms that tend to show up together, without one single known cause

Sounds a lot more fitting, right?

The new name reflects what this condition really is: a whole-body hormone and metabolism condition that looks different from person to person.

A nice detail for us in Melbourne: this change was led by Professor Helena Teede at Monash University, with input from more than 14,000 people who live with the condition and 56 organisations worldwide (Teede et al., 2026).

If you have always known it as PCOS, you are not behind. For the next 5 years you will see it written as "PMOS (formerly PCOS)" while everyone makes the switch.

What PMOS can look like

No two people experience it the same way. Common signs include:

• Irregular periods
• Cycles without ovulation
• Excess hair growth in a male-pattern way (called hirsutism)
• Weight changes
• Insulin resistance
• Mood changes
• Ongoing high testosterone

And there is often more on top of that.

The old approach

In the past, the go-to plan was often a separate medication for each symptom:

• Irregular cycles? The pill.
• Low mood? An antidepressant.
• Weight gain? Metformin.

That can treat the symptoms one by one. But it does not always ask why they are happening in the first place.

We are not stuck with only that approach in 2026.

Here are some parts of PMOS that research suggests you may have real influence over, without reaching for medication first (and in some cases, that may mean you need less of it).

Exercise and your testosterone

After 12 weeks of training, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) was found to lower testosterone more effectively than strength training in women with the condition (Rao, Khan, & Adnan, 2022). Both exercise groups still showed meaningful improvements.

A 2025 review of 19 trials looked at different types of exercise and their effect on testosterone and insulin (Tan et al., 2025). Yoga came out on top overall, with moderate-intensity training and HIIT close behind. The takeaway: movement helps, and there is more than one way to get there.

Have you ever been told "go and exercise, it will help your testosterone long term"? Probably not.

Exercise and insulin

In people with insulin resistance, exercise programs usually lower that resistance, and in some cases reverse it (Whillier, 2020). Researchers are still working out how much of the benefit comes from the exercise itself versus the fat loss that often comes with it.

Regular activity that meets the physical activity guidelines is linked with better insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control (Bird & Hawley, 2017). A 2020 review of exercise in PCOS also found vigorous-intensity exercise especially helpful for insulin resistance and fitness (Patten et al., 2020).

Exercise and mood

The short version: there is strong, consistent research supporting exercise as a tool to help manage mood. A large 2023 review of 97 earlier reviews found physical activity meaningfully reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety across a wide range of people (Singh et al., 2023).

If you would like us to point you to more of that research, just ask.

A note from someone who gets it

As 1 in 8 women, and one of the more than 170 million people worldwide living with this condition, I could talk about this all day. At the end of it, I do not want anyone feeling at odds with the body they are in or the way it works.

When people bring regular movement into their lives, we often see flow-on improvements too: weight, period regularity, mood, and plenty of other wins.

So if you would like support from someone who can genuinely relate, you know where to find us. You have got a clinician who has been there, and the current research on PMOS, right in front of you.

Let us show this condition who is boss.

References

Bird, S. R., & Hawley, J. A. (2017). Update on the effects of physical activity on insulin sensitivity in humans. BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, 2(1), e000143. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2016-000143

Patten, R. K., Boyle, R. A., Moholdt, T., Kiel, I., Hopkins, W. G., Harrison, C. L., & Stepto, N. K. (2020). Exercise interventions in polycystic ovary syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Physiology, 11, 606. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2020.00606

Rao, M., Khan, A. A., & Adnan, Q. U. A. (2022). Effects of high-intensity interval training and strength training on levels of testosterone and physical activity among women with polycystic ovary syndrome. Obstetrics & Gynecology Science, 65(4), 368-375. https://doi.org/10.5468/ogs.22002

Singh, B., Olds, T., Curtis, R., Dumuid, D., Virgara, R., Watson, A., Szeto, K., O'Connor, E., Ferguson, T., Eglitis, E., Miatke, A., Simpson, C. E., & Maher, C. (2023). Effectiveness of physical activity interventions for improving depression, anxiety and distress: An overview of systematic reviews. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 57(18), 1203-1209. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2022-106195

Tan, Y., Liu, Y., Koga, A., Yuan, Y., Yu, H., & Liu, J. (2025). The effects of different exercises on insulin resistance and testosterone changes in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome: A network meta-analysis study. Healthcare, 13(17), 2132. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare13172132

Teede, H. J., Bahri Khomami, M., Morman, R., Laven, J. S. E., Joham, A. E., Costello, M. F., Patil, M., Rees, D. A., Berry, L., Cree, M. G., Zhao, H., Norman, R. J., Dokras, A., & Piltonen, T., on behalf of the Global Name Change Consortium. (2026). Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, the new name for polycystic ovary syndrome: A multistep global consensus process. The Lancet. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00717-8

Whillier, S. (2020). Exercise and insulin resistance. In J. Xiao (Ed.), Physical exercise for human health (Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Vol. 1228, pp. 137-150). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1792-1_9