Human Hormones

Women have traditionally suffered horribly during the menopause. Hot flushes, vaginal dryness and night sweats, not to mention mood swings, are fairly typical of this time in their life. However, new research suggests that the hormone replacement therapy that women take to combat these symptoms could actually help them to lose weight. This astonishing new information to add to the hormone replacement therapy debate has just recently been discussed in the world media channels.

For centuries, women have been concerned about their physical appearance. Body image is highly important, and is directly linked to self esteem. The larger a lady is, the more likely she will feel pressured to be thin. However, the battle to get thin is not one that is easily won, with many women joining diet classes, and working hard on exercise regimes, and still not achieving the results they need. And all the while the media do their best to show women the size ideal. The increasing pressure upon women to seriously attempt to reach ‘size zero’ is a relatively new thing, but as such a stranglehold on the media that most women genuinely believe it is an aspiration that is worth giving attention to.

A new study carried out by researchers at a Brazil University has made it clear that any exercise can drastically reduce the amount of weight on the human body, over time. Recent research has shown that postmenopausal women tend to retain a lot of fat around the abdomen. However, it has also shown that exercise tends to help reduce this excess weight to a great degree.

What has not been clear until recently is the effect, if any, that hormone replacement therapy has on the amount of weight that is lost. The estrogens element that can be found in the hormone replacement therapy is what is now being investigated. The study has shown that it may well work alongside exercise to reduce the amount of fat in the abdomen of postmenopausal women.

The upshot of the study is simple. A group of women who were taking hormone replacement therapy were monitored as regards their exercise levels after the therapy regime had begun. The results were nothing less than encouraging.

The women who were exercising as well as taking hormone replacement therapy saw a significantly higher reduction in body fat than those women who were just taking the hormone replacement therapy and not exercising.

However, the study showed that there was still a significant decrease in the amount of fat around the abdomen in those women who took hormone replacement therapy, when they were compared to women who did not take hormone replacement therapy.

So hope for women who are going through the menopause then. The increase in body fat after this milestone in their lives is potentially not a problem, after a woman exercises and takes hormone replacement therapy. Whether or not the results can be proven to be conclusive is a matter of time.