By Melissa Tennen, HealthAtoZ writer
Women who want to relieve their menopausal symptoms may find exercise a good dose of medicine. Sabrena Newton, a full-time lecturer in the kinesiology and physical education department at California State University in Long Beach, and spokeswoman for the American Council on Exercise, explains.
What does exercise do for menopause?
Sabrena Newton: Exercise cannot prevent menopausal symptoms, but it can decrease the frequency and severity of some symptoms. They include hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, headache, lethargy and fatigue, irritability, anxiety, and depression. In general, we encourage all women from before menopause to postmenopause to begin and stick with an exercise program, if approved by her doctor.
How does exercise help relieve hot flashes and night sweats?
Newton: Exercise can help with hot flashes and night sweats. Hormone therapy relieves the discomfort of hot flashes in most cases. For some women, regular exercise appears to be a promising alternative or adjunct to estrogen therapy. Perimenopausal women experience a 55 percent decrease in severity of hot flashes after participating in an aerobic training program.
Frequent night sweats disrupt a woman's normal sleep cycle and cause her to lose sleep. Therefore, if regular aerobic exercise can improve hot flashes and night sweats, you're more likely to have better sleep, more energy and fewer headaches, as well.
What about anxiety and depression?
Newton: Menopausal women are no more depressed than the general population. Many cases of depression relate more to life stresses such as the empty nest syndrome, death of parents, divorce or death of spouse rather than menopause.
The exceptions are women who experience induced menopause. Their rate of depression is twice that of non-induced menopausal women. This is thought to be due to the abrupt hormonal change a woman's body experiences after her ovaries are removed surgically. Menopause may also be induced by radiation and chemotherapy from cancer treatment.
Regular exercise works at least as well as a popular antidepressant prescription medication in treating clinical depression and keeping it from returning. Regular exercise increases central opioid activity in the brain. Opioids, also known as endorphins, may increase pain tolerance, improve appetite control, and reduce anxiety, tension, anger and confusion.
How long does the relief last? Does it carry over to days when the woman does not exercise?
Newton: The relief is continuous as long as the woman is involved in a regular, consistent exercise program. If the woman exercises most days of the week at the recommended intensities, she should have relief even on the days she doesn't exercise.
Will having an exercise routine in place before menopause help in the long run?
Newton: Yes, because she will have already achieved a certain level of fitness to combat heart disease and strengthen her bone mass. The transition from perimenopause to postmenopause is usually easier if a woman is already somewhat fit.
What is the best exercise or combination of exercises? And how often should a woman exercise?
Newton: Exercise for 30 minutes most days of the week. Check with your doctor before beginning any exercise program.
Also, if you can, include resistance training such as free weights and machines to complement your aerobic exercise. Strength training helps to increase both muscle mass and bone density. This promotes weight management because more lean mass relates to a higher metabolic rate allowing a woman to burn more calories at rest.
Strength along with balance training helps prevent falls associated with traumatic fractures in older adults. Be sure to incorporate flexibility exercises, too. Again, check with your doctor before beginning any exercise program.
How does flexibility training help?
Newton: It helps maintain joint ranges of motion and prevent injuries from overextending stiff, rigid joints. It also helps maintain proper posture, which is associated with lower risk of falling.
If a woman just sticks to one routine, will she see the benefits?
Newton: A woman will initially experience benefits by sticking to the same routine. She should, however, adjust her program every six to eight weeks to avoid the performance plateaus that accompany exercise with no progression. In other words, the body will adapt rather quickly to a regular training program and needs to be continually challenged to progress to higher levels of fitness. Additionally, the boredom of doing the same exercises day in and day out might lead some women to stop exercising. Changing the exercise program frequently helps to ward off boredom and helps motivate individuals to adhere to an exercise program. This is where a personal trainer comes in handy.
Can women get good results if they don't start exercising until menopause has begun?
Newton: Absolutely. It's never too late to start an exercise program.
Will exercise help protect against those health risks caused by a drop in estrogen?
Newton: Exercise can help increase cardiorespiratory function, which tends to decline with age. This leads to more energy throughout the day and better sleep at night. It also helps burn calories while using body fat for fuel, helping promote body fat loss and a healthy blood lipid profile - increased good cholesterol and less of the bad cholesterol. And you have a lower risk for heart disease.
Menopause causes changes in the level of fats in a woman's blood. Some of these fats, called lipids, are components of cholesterol. There are two main types of cholesterol: high-density lipoprotein (HDL), which is associated with a beneficial, cleansing effect in the bloodstream and appears to decrease in postmenopausal women. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) is the other type and encourages fat to accumulate on the walls of arteries and eventually clog them. This increases in postmenopausal women.
Regular aerobic exercise can reverse these changes that occur with menopause. Exercise has been shown to increase HDL and decrease LDL. These alterations due to exercise can definitely decrease a woman's risk for developing heart disease.
The biggest culprit in the process of bone loss is estrogen deficiency. Bone loss quickens during perimenopause. Estrogen impacts bone by helping to maintain normal levels of vitamin D and preventing bone break down.
The best strategy for osteoporosis is prevention. The condition of an older woman's skeleton depends on two things: The peak amount of bone attained before menopause and the rate of the bone loss after.
Adequate intake of dietary calcium and vitamin D, particularly in young children prior to puberty help build bone. Adults ages 19 to 50 should get 1,000 milligrams of calcium a day and adults ages 51 and older should get 1,200 a day. Infants and adults up to age 50 should get 200 international units of vitamin D a day. And adults over age 50 should get 400 to 600 international units a day.
Ideal cardiovascular activity involves weight-bearing exercise such as vigorous walking or jogging. Balance training prevents the traumatic falls that often lead to fracture and disability.
Why do women gain weight after menopause?
Newton: After menopause, women lose up to 66 percent of their estrogen and 50 to 60 percent of their testosterone. The estrogen loss occurs more quickly than the testosterone loss. Therefore, testosterone-related traits start to surface at the time of menopause.
Women may have increased intra-abdominal fat, typically associated with male-pattern body fat storage. That's where you might see more of an apple shape, which is highly linked to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease. Women also may lose their hair and have more hair on their faces.
Can exercise help a woman after menopause with her weight?
Newton: Yes. A study reported in the January 2003 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association looked specifically at the effect of exercise on intra-abdominal fat. It studied 168 postmenopausal women ages 50 to 75 who did 45 minutes of walking five days a week. The results showed a significant decrease in intra-abdominal fat, total body fat and body weight.
The bottom line is that weight gain after menopause is more likely in sedentary women and less likely in moderately active women.
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External Source
 | The American Council on Exercise
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This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.
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