HRT affects skeletal muscle contractile characteristics: a definitive answer?

Abstract

In this context, Ronkainen and colleagues (9) have cleverly used a design that minimizes the potential of genetic and/or physiological differences between users and nonusers (by using monozygotic twins), while optimizing the ability to tease out any HRT effects. The presented results are in favor of HRT having a significant positive impact on skeletal muscle functioning, given the strong relationship between muscle performance and HRT usage reported here. Through the robust design adopted here, this study therefore incrementally advances the field and in fact tips the balance toward a positive and measurable impact of HRT: HRT users have five times the levels of estrogen, walk 7% faster, jump 16% higher, and exhibit 8% greater relative lean tissue content and 5% smaller relative fatty tissue content compared with their nonusing counterparts.