Research
Energy balance
Lifestyle interventions (diet, exercise, or behavioral) reduce body weight and BMI in women with PCOS, but evidence for improving glucose tolerance is uncertain.
For women with PCOS, adopting a structured lifestyle program involving diet, exercise, or behavioral strategies is likely to help reduce weight and BMI. While the effect on blood glucose control is not clearly proven, the reduction in body weight itself is a key therapeutic goal. These interventions are recommended as the first step in management.
LimitedQualifiesLOW confidence
Lifestyle intervention may reduce weight (kg) (MD -1.68 kg, 95% CI -2.66 to -0.70, 9 RCTs, N = 353, I2 = 47%, low-quality evidence). Lifestyle intervention may reduce body mass index (BMI) (kg/m2) (-0.34 kg/m2, 95% CI -0.68 to -0.01, 12 RCTs, N = 434, I2= 0%, low-quality evidence). We are uncertain of the effect of lifestyle intervention on glucose tolerance (glucose outcomes in oral glucose tolerance test) (mmol/L/minute) (SMD -0.02, 95% CI -0.38 to 0.33, 3 RCTs, N = 121, I2 = 0%, low-quality evidence).
Why this rating
Low-quality evidence due to high/unclear risk of bias and heterogeneity.
Source
Lifestyle changes in women with polycystic ovary syndrome
Siew S Lim et al. · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · 2019
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd007506.pub4
Meta-analysis · 15 studiesCited 381×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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