The research, published online in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, shows that these novel androgens make up more than half of the androgen pool in women with polycystic ovary syndrome.

While previous research exclusively focused on the role of the classic androgen, testosterone, in PCOS, this research breaks new ground by showing that a novel class of androgens, known as 11–oxygenated C19 steroids, is the major contributor to androgen excess in women with PCOS.

‘Androgens are important as drivers of metabolic risk in PCOS and we can show that more than half of circulating androgens in PCOS patients consists of the previously unrecognised androgen class, the so–called 11–oxygenated androgens,’ explains research lead Professor Wiebke Arlt, Director of the Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research (IMSR) at the University of Birmingham.

These results are significant because as research from one of the study’s lead authors, Karl Storbeck – a Newton Advanced Fellow at Birmingham in collaboration with his home University, Stellenbosch University in South Africa – has shown, some 11–oxygenated androgens are similarly powerful androgens as testosterone. Previous work by the Birmingham group had shown that the pattern of androgens in blood predicts the metabolic risk associated with PCOS, a condition now increasingly recognised as a metabolic disorder, with increased rates of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.