Is Estrogen a Mimic of Exercise to Stimulate Mitochondrial Biogenesis: A Conversation Between Dr. Heidi Codino and Dr. Sundeep Dugar
In this episode of Dr Talks, Hormone Heroines host Heidi Codino, ND, CNCB, sits down with Dr. Sundeep Dugar, co-founder of BlueOakNx. Dr. Codino specializes in women’s health from puberty to post-menopause, with a focus on longevity and vibrant, healthy aging. Dr. Dugar brings nearly 40 years of award-winning pharmaceutical drug discovery, over 100 patents, and 16 years spent unraveling one of the more surprising puzzles in women’s health: the relationship between estrogen and exercise.
Click the image below to watch the podcast (or read a summary of the conversation in the rest of this article).
This episode is filled with surprising revelations, the first of which is that estrogen triggers the same mitochondrial receptor pathway that exercise does, creating new mitochondria even without physical activity, a process called mitochondrial biogenesis. This is likely why pregnant women don’t need to exercise as much. Their body floods with estrogen to compensate for the energy demand of growing a human.
Dr. Codino also refers to the estrobolome, the gut microbiome that feeds off of estrogen. When estrogen drops in perimenopause, that internal workout stops completely, ending in energy depletion, muscle loss, and bone deterioration.
Women already have less muscle mass than men at baseline. Perimenopause removes the estrogen-driven mitochondrial protection and limits exercise capacity. The result: a steep, compounding crash in energy, metabolism, brain function, and cardiac health, all at once. This results in symptoms like unexplained gastrointestinal issues, fatigue, and brain fog.
This podcast episode addresses the power of nutrition, exercise and mitochondrial health with a solutions approach to the dilemma of women’s health, mindset and a pathway forward.
Once you understand the dynamic of nutrition, exercise and mitochondrial function, you command the evolution from reductionist labels, such as one symptom, one drug, one treatment… to a more holistic solution rooted in addressing the underlying cause – mitochondrial dysfunction.