Steroid hormones regulate metabolic flexibility at the level of the mitochondria. Estradiol, the most frequently studied among the steroid hormones, plays a pivotal role in determining how food fuel is converted into cellular fuel or ATP.
When we eliminate estradiol with medications such Lupron and other GnRH agonists or antagonists, or when we remove a woman’s ovaries, depleting her primary source for estrogen synthesis, metabolic flexibility diminishes significantly.*
With the lack of metabolic flexibility comes a number of health issues, some noticeable, like weight gain, and others less noticeable, at least initially, like cardiac and neurodegenerative diseases.
