Hypothesis and objectives
PCOS, PCOS symptoms
SECONDARY
The working hypothesis of this randomized controlled trial (RCT) is an improvement of PCOS symptoms and androgen levels after six months of probiotic intervention. To that end, the trial is designed to primarily compare the probiotic intervention to a placebo treatment and secondarily to a standard non-hormonal treatment option such as metformin. To our knowledge, this RCT is the first trial to compare the effects of probiotics to placebo and to include metformin as a benchmark treatment arm.Two other secondary objectives are to determine the prevalence and impact of equol production in women with PCOS compared to previous reports in literature based on the general population [