About PCOSguides
Who writes this site, why it exists, and what it will never tell you.
Written by Sarah CollinsLast updated
PCOSguides is a PCOS reference site written by Sarah Collins, its founder and only author. She is not a doctor or a dietitian. Every article here is built from primary research, segmented by which of the four PCOS drivers you have, and states plainly who it will not work for.
Why this site exists
Most people meet PCOS in a single short appointment. You are told the name of the syndrome, told to lose weight, and offered the combined pill. Then the appointment ends.
That is not a failure of the person across the desk. A ten-minute consultation cannot cover a condition that is endocrine, metabolic, dermatological and reproductive at the same time — and it certainly cannot cover which version of it you have. So the explaining gets outsourced to whatever you find at 11pm on your phone.
What you find there is mostly two things: pages selling the supplement they are reviewing, and posts restating the same six tips as every other post. Both leave the same question unanswered. Not what helps PCOS, but what helps mine, and how will I know within a month whether it did anything.
Sarah founded PCOSguides after spending years piecing together PCOS information from studies, appointments and forums, and deciding the summary she wanted did not exist. She researches and writes every article on this site.
What makes it different
It answers by phenotype, not by "PCOS"
PCOS is one label over at least four different drivers. Advice built for one of them can do nothing for another, which is why so much PCOS advice reads as if it failed you personally. Every article on this site says which driver it is written for.
| Driver | What is actually driving it | What you would recognise |
|---|---|---|
| Insulin-resistant | Blood sugar and insulin signalling | Carb cravings, energy crashes, weight that centres on the middle, skin darkening at the neck. |
| Inflammatory | Chronic low-grade inflammation | Joint aches, headaches, gut symptoms, skin flares, unexplained fatigue. |
| Adrenal | Stress axis and DHEA-S | Normal testosterone but raised DHEA-S, symptoms that track your stress, wired-but-tired evenings. |
| Post-pill | Androgen rebound after hormonal birth control | Cycles and skin were fine on the pill, then broke down in the months after stopping. |
These are working categories used to organise advice, not a diagnosis and not a formal classification. The Rotterdam criteria are what a clinician diagnoses you against.
Three primary sources, minimum, linked to the study
Every article links to at least three primary sources — the trial, the meta-analysis or the clinical guideline itself, never another blog summarising it. The build refuses to publish an article carrying fewer than three, so this is a constraint rather than an intention.
Each claim gets the numbers attached to it: the dose that was studied, how many people were in it, how long it ran, and what actually changed. "Studies show" is not a source and does not appear here. Four categories are never cited on this site at all:
- Other blogs
- Supplement brand pages
- Social media
- AI summaries
It names who each thing will not work for
Every protocol on this site carries a section on who should skip it — the interactions, the contraindications, and the phenotype it does nothing for. That section is mandatory. An article that cannot say who it excludes is an article that has not been researched properly.
The same applies to timelines. Where the research gives a realistic time to effect, you get the number. Where it does not, you get told that it does not.
What Sarah does not claim
Sarah Collins has no clinical credentials, and none are printed after her name anywhere on this site. She reads the research and translates it. That is the entire claim.
There is no named medical reviewer yet. A clinician and a registered dietitian are being recruited to review this content; until one signs off in writing, no article will carry a reviewer's name. In the meantime each article states that it was checked against the 2023 International Evidence-Based Guideline for the Assessment and Management of PCOS.
Nothing here promises an outcome. PCOS is managed, not cured, and no page on this site will promise you weight loss, a pregnancy, or a symptom disappearing. You will also never see a before-and-after body photo here, in an article or in an ad slot.
And nothing here is a diagnosis. This site can tell you what the evidence says and what to ask for. It cannot examine you, read your labs, or know your history — so every article names the point at which you should stop reading and talk to a clinician instead.
How to use this site
Start by working out which driver you are dealing with, because it changes what the rest of the site recommends to you. The quiz takes a few minutes and sorts you into one of the four above.
Then go to the section that matches the question you actually came in with:
- Types & Diagnosis
- The four phenotypes, Rotterdam criteria, which labs to ask for, and how to read the results you already have.
- Diet, Meal Plans & Recipes
- What to eat, what it does to your blood sugar, and meal plans that survive a real week.
- Supplements & Medications
- Inositol, berberine, metformin, spearmint — studied doses, what the trials actually found, and who should skip each one.
- Weight & Insulin Resistance
- Why the standard advice stalls, what insulin resistance changes about it, and what moves the metabolic markers.
- Fertility & Cycles
- Tracking ovulation on an irregular cycle, what letrozole and clomid do, and when to see a specialist.
- Symptoms, Skin & Hair
- Hirsutism, cystic acne, hair thinning, fatigue — the androgen mechanism behind each and what changes it.
- Movement, Sleep & Stress
- Training that lowers cortisol instead of spiking it, and the sleep and stress levers that move hormones.
- Product Comparisons
- Protein powders, inositol brands, glucose monitors — compared on ingredients and evidence, not on commission.
This site is being written section by section, and it is honest about where it has got to. A section with nothing published in it says so and shows you what is coming, rather than showing you an empty page or a list of articles that do not exist.
If you want the working underneath all of this — how a post gets researched, sourced, reviewed and updated — that is set out in the editorial policy, and the current state of medical review is on the medical reviewpage.
Get in touch
Email support@pcosguides.com. There is one person behind that address, so it is slower than a support desk and it is not a place to get medical advice — but a question that keeps coming in usually turns into an article.
If you find something on this site that is wrong, please say so and cite what you have. Errors get corrected in the article and logged in public on the correctionspage. Nothing gets quietly edited.