The gynecological condition that has troubled 170 million women worldwide has, in name, disappeared. At this year’s European Congress of Endocrinology, “Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS)” was officially renamed “Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS).” This revision is far more than just changing a letter. For a long time, many people’s understanding of PCOS was confined to two points: “it affects menstruation and fertility” and “if you don’t want children, you don’t need to worry about it.” The new name emphasizes “endocrine” and “metabolic,” making it clear that this “gynecological condition,” which affects up to 10% of women of reproductive age, is actually a systemic disorder involving the whole body. It is linked to depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, fatty liver, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and other issues.
Beyond PCOS, there are many other female health conditions that have been misunderstood and even stigmatized. The terrifying-sounding “cervical erosion” is actually an extremely common, treatment-free condition known as “cervical columnar epithelial ectopy.” The “lochia” that appears after childbirth is simply normal discharge produced during the uterus’s natural recovery. Only when we revisit and accurately name these diseases and symptoms can women’s health be truly safeguarded.
What does renaming “PCOS” really mean? At the moment she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, 27-year-old Chuxi broke down. Deeper than the breakdown was anger. The doctor told her that the seemingly sudden diabetes had actually developed over time from long-term insulin resistance, and that insulin resistance is a core pathological feature seen in 50% to 70% of PCOS patients. When she learned this, Chuxi had already been living with PCOS for nearly a decade. On social media, there are many people who have progressed from PCOS to diabetes.
At age 18, because she had not had a period for five consecutive months, she went to the doctor and was ultimately diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. At that time, she did not think it was anything serious. The doctor’s words—“no need to deal with it now, just address it when you want to have children later”—felt like reassurance and put her at ease. And the symptom of infertility from PCOS seemed unimportant to her as a freshman in college; in fact, she even regarded it as a good thing. So she carried on with her life, taking that casual diagnosis lightly. It was not until she was 27, during a pre-pregnancy checkup, that she was directly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
While looking up relevant information, Chuxi belatedly discovered that in the gynecology textbooks, the chapter on PCOS prominently lists “insulin resistance” as one of its typical endocrine features. What she could not understand was that over the past decade, she had seen doctors many times for menstrual issues, yet no one had ever told her that this “gynecological condition,” which affects one in ten women of reproductive age, could be accompanied by metabolic abnormalities and eventually develop into diabetes that severely damages health.
Chuxi’s experience is not an isolated case. From its name alone, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome can easily be mistaken for some kind of ovarian “cyst”-related disease, and ovarian problems are often linked to menstrual irregularities and infertility. Therefore, PCOS patients frequently hear remarks like, “It’s okay, just deal with it when you’re ready to have a baby.” But that is not the truth. It is a complex endocrine and metabolic disorder that affects the reproductive, endocrine, metabolic, and even cardiovascular systems. Infertility is only one of many symptoms of PCOS, yet it has been placed at the forefront, obscuring other health risks that deserve attention.
In May this year, at the European Congress of Endocrinology, the misleading name “Polycystic Ovary Syndrome,” which had been used for nearly a century, was finally changed. It was officially renamed “Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS),” highlighting the “endocrine” and “metabolic” aspects that had been most easily overlooked but are the most revealing of the disease’s true nature. A change in disease name influences how people understand the condition and how they respond to it. With more than 170 million PCOS patients worldwide, many scholars have argued that the inaccurate name was a major reason for delayed diagnosis and treatment. When a condition is called “Polycystic Ovary Syndrome,” people naturally focus narrowly on the ovaries and reproductive function. The new name, by emphasizing “endocrine” and “metabolism,” makes it easier for doctors, patients, and society at large to recognize that what demands attention is not just fertility but the patient’s overall health in the present. This is the most important significance of the renaming: women with the condition can finally enter the medical landscape as whole, independent individuals, rather than as “potential childbearers,” and be fully considered and properly treated. And this is only the beginning.
Misdiagnoses are manufactured. Being misunderstood seems to be the shared fate of many gynecological conditions. When people think of gynecological diseases, “cervical erosion” often comes to mind first. The name alone is alarming, as if it were an extremely serious, incurable disease. The media has reported that some unscrupulous clinics used it to frighten patients, claiming that without treatment they would develop cancer or infertility, and then coerced them into undergoing costly surgeries. But the reality is quite the opposite. The unpleasant-sounding “cervical erosion” is not an “ulceration” or disease at all; it is a physiological phenomenon caused by the outward migration of columnar epithelium from the cervix, and under normal circumstances it requires no treatment. Therefore, after the PCOS renaming sparked heated discussion, many people called for “cervical erosion” to be properly redefined as well. Only then did they realize that “cervical erosion” had actually ceased to exist long ago. Yet even today, the term still appears frequently in everyday language and even in some hospitals’ promotional materials and consultations.
There are many similar misunderstandings. Take “lochia,” for example, which appears after childbirth. In fact, it is simply the blood, decidual tissue, and uterine secretions discharged during the uterus’s recovery after the placenta is delivered—a normal process of the body’s self-repair. But the character “e” (meaning “evil” or “foul”) in its Chinese name leads many to instinctively associate it with “dirtiness,” “corruption,” or “abnormality,” and this affects how women feel. Surveys show that 15% of postpartum women believe the term “lochia” intensifies their postpartum anxiety.
Even parts of women’s bodies have been misnamed. The vaginal corona, which naturally has openings and is not an intact membrane, has been called the “hymen” and treated as a symbol of chastity and morality. The normal changes in a woman’s pelvis, fat, and muscles after childbirth are packaged as “mom butt” that needs correction. Women’s bodies carry too many meanings beyond the physical. When diseases occur in women’s bodies, they are also more likely than other conditions to be tied to shame and morality. Many women, after being diagnosed with “cervical erosion,” dare not tell their partners or families, fearing that others will think they are “promiscuous” or have a sexually transmitted disease, or that it will affect their future relationships. Women infected with HPV also fall into boundless panic. Yet the truth is that 80% of women may be infected with at least one type of HPV in their lifetime; it is a matter of probability, not morality.
All these misunderstandings ultimately affect women’s real health. Severe stigma keeps many people away from the gynecology clinic. While many refuse to enter such clinics, a considerable number of others are being overtreated for their “gynecological problems.” Some physiological phenomena that require no treatment are distorted, through misnaming and commercial marketing, into “diseases” that must be urgently resolved. Behind every manufactured problem lies a clearly priced solution. On e-commerce platforms, searching for terms like “cervical erosion” and “lochia” yields a large number of products with sales in the tens of thousands. The common condition “cervical columnar epithelial ectopy” was once regarded as a “precursor to cervical cancer,” throwing countless women into unnecessary panic and driving them to seek treatment desperately. Many hospitals promoted laser, microwave, and other therapies, and many people spent tens of thousands of yuan on surgeries—first draining their anxiety, then their wallets, and sometimes suffering side effects such as bleeding, increased discharge, and infertility, with more loss than gain. Now, with PCOS properly renamed, those mistaken labels and deep-rooted prejudices are gradually being dismantled.
Women’s health deserves to be seen for what it is. In fact, even before PCOS was officially renamed, some people had already recognized the inappropriateness of the name. In April 2023, the blogger @A Lie Mu Xing Chu Zhuan Teng posted on Weibo: “When I was diagnosed with PCOS at 20, I didn’t take it seriously; the focus was all on fertility, but actually it has everything to do with metabolism as a whole.” More than 4,000 people reposted that post, and among them, some said that it was precisely after seeing that post that they were diagnosed with PCOS and insulin resistance. In the medical community, the discussion about the name had actually been going on for nearly three decades. As early as 1995, academic articles debated whether to change the name “PCOS.” In 2012, led by Australian endocrinologist Helena Teede and joined by professional societies from multiple countries and regions, it finally took another 14 years to truly realize this change.
Cognitive updates are also occurring in more women’s health and body issues. In recent years, more and more people have begun to re-examine those long-used but misleading and even biased terms. Some netizens launched a poll on social media supporting a “renaming of lochia,” and within a short time it gained more than 20,000 supporters. People are now looking for and creating more neutral, non-derogatory terms, such as “postpartum discharge,” to describe this normal physiological process and give belated respect to women who have just given birth. As for “cervical erosion,” more and more doctors and science communicators are making videos and writing articles, telling the public over and over that the cervix has not “eroded” and that the vast majority of so-called “cervical erosion” is merely a normal physiological phenomenon, not a cause for panic.
Change has also appeared on the big screen. Every more accurate naming is a calibration of understanding. And understanding affects whether a person is willing to go to the hospital, whether they feel ashamed because of their physical condition, and also determines how the public understands disease, how society views women’s bodies, and how medicine treats women’s health. When we begin to use more accurate language to describe the body and disease, women’s health can finally return to where it should be: understood, acknowledged, and treated seriously.
