Women are prone to gain weight when androgens and testosterone are at higher levels in their body than perceived ‘normal’ for a regular female. However I am wondering why this is, considering males have lower body fat percentage and a higher muscle mass ratio than women; you would think the excess testosterone in a woman’s body would help them lose fat not gain it? Or am I just dumb for thinking this haha.
In: Biology
You’ve got it a little backwards.
The most common cause of abnormally high androgen (male hormones, like testosterone) levels in women is an common (~20% of women) condition called PCOS. You can Wiki the full list of symptoms. There are a few other ways women can have unusually high androgen levels (steroid abuse, a few rare genetic conditions), but those don’t get talked about much.
One of the common effects of PCOS is insulin resistance. Normally, insulin is the hormone that helps the body turn glucose from food into energy. People with insulin resistance problems are not able to property absorb energy from food, as their body is resistant to the action of insulin. This means you feel hungry, drained and tired, even if you’ve eaten the correct amount. This leads to more eating. Which leads to getting fat.
One of the biggest problems with insulin resistance is that the best way to combat it is to loose weight, but having insulin resistance tends to make you gain weight because you feel hungry even when you aren’t. It’s a cyclical problem.
You’re right that heightened androgen levels also produce a lot of typically “male” traits, like increased muscle mass, body hair, deeper voice, etc.
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