Figure 3

Mean serum metabolite difference between PCOS cases and controls by three waist circumference (WC) strata (⩽87, 87⩾98 cm). Overall there are 18 metabolites significantly associated with PCOS in women with large waist circumference (only 8 of which are plotted here, see Supplementary Tables 6–7 for full results), while there were no significant differences in lean women. The points and lines indicate the mean differences with their 95% confidence intervals between cases and controls in standard deviations. The relative difference was calculated from the original data without scaling as [mean(cases)−mean(controls)]/mean(controls). Significant and suggestive differences after multiple testing correction indicated with specific characters. Serum metabolites levels that are higher in PCOS cases are in red and those that are lower in blue. Omega 3 FA ratio, omega 6,7 FA ratio and omega-9 FA ratio denote the omega metabolite ratio to total fatty acids. Apo denotes apolipoprotein; FA, fatty acid; HDL, high density lipoprotein; IDL, intermediate density lipoprotein; LDL, low density lipoprotein; TG, triglycerides; VLDL, very low density lipoprotein.