Research
Hormonal
Within PCOS populations, metabolic inflexibility is strongly associated with higher visceral adipose tissue and hyperandrogenemia (free testosterone/free androgen index).
If you have PCOS and struggle with metabolic flexibility, check your visceral fat and hormone levels. High free testosterone and abdominal fat are key drivers of this inflexibility. Addressing these specific markers may help improve your body's ability to switch fuel sources.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
When dividing women with PCOS above and below the mean cutoff for insulin resistance, the insulin resistant women with PCOS had lower rates of non-oxidative glucose metabolism (p = 0.0001), higher levels of percent free testosterone (p = 0.04), a higher free androgen index (p = 0.006), more visceral adipose tissue (p = 0.02), and were less metabolically flexible (p = 0.007).
Why this rating
Statistically significant associations found in a stratified subgroup analysis.
Source
Metabolic inflexibility in women with PCOS is similar to women with type 2 diabetes
Nicholas T. Broskey et al. · Nutrition & Metabolism · 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12986-018-0312-9
cross_sectional · n=86Cited 23×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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