subject: Why Women After Menopause Gain Weight [print this page] Why Women After Menopause Gain Weight Why Women After Menopause Gain Weight
New research from the University of California at Berkeley highlights why women after menopause gain weight. Before menopause women have high levels of estrogen that acts on fat tissue and muscle tissue to actually help women burn fat during exercise compared to women after menopause when estrogen levels are low according to the research done at UC Berkeley.
In the research study 10 postmenopausal women who were not taking any hormone replacement therapy and had not been exercising regularly were tested on an exercise bike for how well they were able to burn fat as fuel. Then the women were trained by trainers starting out three times per week and over a 10-week period increased to six times per week and then re-tested to see if the women were able to burn increased amounts of fat for fuel. Both times the women were tested they exercised for 60 minutes, the current recommendations for daily exercise from the Institute of Medicine.
It turns out that both before and after the training the postmenopausal women were at a disadvantage compared to an earlier research study by the same group on younger women ages 18 to 35 years old when it came to how much fat the women were able to burn during the exercise bout. But according to the researchers the good news was that over the 10-week training period the postmenopausal women were able to double the amount of fat they burned for energy during exercise.
This research is some of the first of its kind to try and understand why, after menopause, it can be hard for women to lose weight compared to when they are younger. According to the UC Berkeley scientists, this highlights an aging effect on women's metabolism that as of yet we do not have a therapy for. It is clear, according to researchers, that women should be encouraged to maintain a healthy weight throughout life and even after menopause when losing weight might be more difficult, it is still achievable through a healthy lifestyle and exercise, though our research shows that it will most likely be more difficult.
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