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Estrogen Replacement Therapy: Another blow for estrogen therapy
Estrogen replacement therapy (ERT), once touted as a health and fitness panacea
for women after the menopause, continues to lose credibility on all fronts.
With its benefits for bone uncertain and its harms ??? more breast cancer and
cardiovascular disease ??? confirmed, it now seems that estrogen replacement
therapy (ERT) offers only minimal advantages for postmenopausal muscle.
Researchers from Australia investigated the effects of estrogen replacement
therapy (ERT) on 840 healthy 70-79-year-old white women. Of these, 259 were
taking either estrogen alone or estrogen-plus-progestogen. In particular, they
wanted to find out whether muscle composition was superior in estrogen
replacement therapy (ERT) users and whether this translated into enhanced muscle
strength and physical function.
Estrogen is thought to affect muscle composition both directly and indirectly ???
the latter via its role in regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism, which
involves conserving muscle glycogen and stimulating the conversion of fat to
energy.
The theory suggested that the estrogen users would have superior muscle
composition in comparison with non-users, with greater muscle mass, higher
muscle density and lower fat mass, giving rise to higher levels of muscle
strength and physical function.
As well as assessing muscle composition, the researchers tested the women???s
handgrip and knee extensor strength. They then measured physical function by
means of repeated chair stands, walking and balance tests. estrogen replacement
therapy (ERT) users were found to have greater muscle mass in their quadriceps
(front thigh muscles) than non-users. They also had greater grip strength and
marginally better knee extensor strength.
However, these improvements were very modest, at 3.3% or less. More importantly,
they did not lead to enhanced physical function because the subtle differences
in muscle composition and strength appeared to have no measurable effect on
physical performance tasks.
The researchers concluded that ???estrogen replacement has at best a minor
association with muscle composition and strength, and these associations in
well-functioning older women are of questionable clinical relevance???.
The bottom line for postmenopausal women seeking to boost their muscle power is
that the skeletal muscle benefits derived from resistance exercise far outweigh
any effect likely to be achieved with estrogen replacement.
Med Sci Sports Exerc, vol 37, no 10, pp 17411747
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