Insulin "turbocharges" conversion of testosterone to estrogen

This may be old news to many.....

So aromatase converts testosterone to estrogen, and aromatase activity is greatly increased by insulin, something of which we all seem to have too much of in our modern society. ( insulin that is )

Here is an interesting passage from this paper.....

The physical effects of illness and inflammation, and the psychological stress associated with concern about being loved and accepted by family and peers, compounded by work pressure, financial stress and the perceived urgency of daily living, all contribute to effectively increase corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) Foster et al., 2009. The resultant pituitary adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) and corticosterone output stimulate the increased consumption of sweet and palatable carbohydrates (Dallman et al., 2007), including foods that contain 30% sucrose (like many breakfast cereals, cakes, biscuits, and confectionary), that stimulate a normal reactive insulin response.

Unfortunately, the increased insulin output,

• upregulates P450 aromatase 6-fold (Samad, 2007),
•  increases leptin output (Thomas et al., 2000; Falconnier et al.,
• 2003; Manderson et al., 2003; Lindsay et al., 2004),
•  increases estrogen-receptor-alpha number and activity (Kaaks, 2008),  
• induces hypertriglyceridemia, sodium retention and hypertension (Biddinger and Kahn, 2006),
•  increases subcutaneous fat deposition (Shin et al., 2007),

Further from the author.....

In summary, continuing exposure to stress, compensatory eating, xeno-oestrogens, the pill, pesticides, oestrogenic chemicals, fast foods, soft drinks and poor quality carbohydrate diets, cyclically amplify aromatase to TURBOCHARGE the production of even more oestradiol. . .until overweight becomes obesity, stress becomes depression, glucose intolerance becomes type two diabetes, benign prostate and breast changes turn into prostate cancer and breast cancer, and acceptable forgetfulness progresses toward Alzheimer’s disease.

In reference to the bolded part, the author recognizes that it is the carbohydrates in the diet that need to be scrutinized, not the dietary fats. Personally I think the cause of gyno in people taking high doses of steroids/androgens actually comes from the "bulking" aspect of their diet that generally involves extremely high amounts of calories/carbohydrates/refined carbohydrates. All the insulin that follows such a diet no doubt "turbochargers" aromastase to convert all that testosterone your injecting into estrogen.

There is also the link between increased levels of stress and increased carbohydrate consumption that has been reported many times before. To be honest, unless you are financially well off, modern life is almost 24/7 stress.

IF your still on the fence to the eternal chicken and egg question of what comes first, insulin hyper-secretion or insulin resistance, but still want to reduce your aromatase activity. You can do either one of two things, reduce your insulin resistance, or reduce your insulin secretion. ( or both obviously ). Reducing insulin resistance is not something that can be done in an obvious way, otherwise we'd have a cure for type 2 diabetes. HOWEVER, reducing your insulin secretion is easily done by reducing carbohydrates in your diet.