'It was like a godsend' — GLP-1 drugs show promise against hormonal disorder that causes constant weight gain and forces women to shave facial hair

Charlotte Touzalin spent years getting hit with the same ugly trio of symptoms: weight gain, erratic periods, and facial hair she had to shave. Her mother, Anne Schultz, had lived through a similar maze for decades before both were finally diagnosed with polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, or PMOS, a disorder said to affect 1 in 8 women worldwide.

That diagnosis didn’t come with a clean fix. For PMOS, doctors mostly manage symptoms with birth control, diet and exercise, because the condition has no known cause or specific treatment. But a small body of research is starting to point somewhere else: GLP-1 drugs, the obesity medicines better known for weight loss, may also help with the hormone and insulin problems that drive the disorder.

Touzalin took weekly semaglutide shots for 10 months in a study led by Dr. Melanie Cree, a Children’s Hospital Colorado doctor who has run three GLP-1 studies in PMOS. The changes were hard to miss. Her abnormal hair growth slowed, her periods normalized, and she stopped feeling hungry all the time. She also stopped gaining weight constantly.

The early results from that study, published in June in Fertility and Sterility, showed that eight of 11 participants who finished lost at least 10% of their body weight. The median loss was about 42 pounds, and the median drop in testosterone was 52%. Six women had more periods, and four ended up on monthly cycles. Across Cree’s three studies, women on GLP-1s lost more weight than people in control groups, while testosterone, blood sugar and insulin levels fell.

The picture is promising, but not settled. Other studies around the world have reported similar results, yet the trials are still small and some researchers say more evidence is needed. Meanwhile, doctors are already using GLP-1s off label for PMOS and seeing benefits, even as insurers often refuse to pay because the drugs are not approved for the condition. Touzalin ran into that wall herself when her study ended in June and the free medication stopped.