The promises and pitfalls of personalized health

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they’re going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here. The promises and pitfalls of personalized health Personalized health is the holy grail, but there’s a long way to go before algorithms can factor in chronic conditions. The promises and pitfalls of personalized health Personalized health is the holy grail, but there’s a long way to go before algorithms can factor in chronic conditions. A few days ago, my esthetician was smearing hot wax on my face. The two caterpillars I call eyebrows were in desperate need of taming — as was my lady ’stache. I hate this monthly ritual, but facial hair is a sore spot. Hirsutism is perhaps one of the few visual indicators of a condition that’s plagued me for the past decade. Until this week, I’ve always known it as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Normally, I spend waxing sessions chattering away about the weather (it’s sort of hard to have deep conversations when someone is ripping hair off your face). But that day, we spent the entire session talking about how the global medical establishment decided this week to rename PCOS to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, or PMOS. There are several reasons why. Despite the original name, PMOS — which affects roughly 170 million, or one in eight, women worldwide — often doesn’t result in ovarian cysts. The updated name more accurately reflects how it’s both a hormonal and metabolic condition, not purely a reproductive one. The reality is that the condition can impact multiple organs and is associated with other health conditions, like insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and obstructive sleep apnea. According to The New York Times, focusing the name on one symptom of the condition — ovarian cysts — has led to inadequate clinical training, poorer research funding, delays in diagnosis, and fragmented care for people suffering with PMOS. In my experience, doctors have often told me that PMOS is benign and decline to offer treatment unless I want to actively pursue pregnancy. As it turned out, my esthetician also has PMOS. Except where she has ovarian cysts, I don’t. I have insulin resistance; she doesn’t. I struggle a bit with hirsutism, while she lamented about cystic acne. We both put on roughly 60 pounds out of nowhere, but she was able to get it under control through intermittent fasting, a specialized diet, and supplementing with milk thistle and myo-inositol, a type of carbohydrate that helps improve insulin sensitivity. Metformin — a diabetes drug that’s used off-label to treat PMOS — did absolutely nothing for her, while it’s an effective part of my treatment along with a GLP-1. I’ve had this conversation with so many fellow PMOS sufferers over the years. We always marvel at how the same condition can manifest in such wildly different ways. And while we often swap tips, I’ve…