Abstract
Aims: In women's life, menopause is characterized by significant physiological changes often associated with an increase in body mass and obesity-associated sicknesses. Numerous researches described interdependencies of estrogen deficiency, aging, and resting energy expenditure (REE) downfall in the obesity correlated with the menopause. The aim of this study was to determining whether healthy, obese menopausal women underwent HRT treatment, showed changes in their REE, autonomic asset, and assessment of oxidative stress in comparison with obese pre- and post-menopausal women.Methodology: In this study, we measured the body composition, the REE, the oxidative stress, the diet assimilation, and the autonomic nervous system activity in three groups: pre-menopause women (n = 50), post-menopause women following hormone-replacement therapy (HRT; n = 50), and post-menopause women not following HRT (n = 50).Results: In the group with HRT a significant increase of the sympathetic activity and REE was described. Finally this group showed a notable increment of oxidative stress compared with the others, and utilizing BIA instrument, the free fat mass was increased respect to the fat mass of obese women.Conclusion: The study highlights the importance of the HRT-related physiological changes that influence body weight in menopause women. This results are important because have a practical implications for prevention and/or treatment of the obesity.
Highlights
In women’s life, menopause is characterized by significant physiological changes associated to estrogen deficiency and, subsequently, to the arrest of ovarian activity
We only reported the percentage of Fat-Free Mass (FFM)
Post-hoc test showed a difference between Hormone-Replacement Therapy (HRT) and pre-menopause and between HRT and post-menopause women
Summary
In women’s life, menopause is characterized by significant physiological changes associated to estrogen deficiency and, subsequently, to the arrest of ovarian activity. Women experienced a general tendency to weight and fat mass (FM) gain (Poehlman et al, 1995) Such increase of adiposity seems to be related to the decline. Estrogen Reduction Causes Physiological Changes in endogenous estrogen This hypothesis was tested by several studies using Hormone-Replacement Therapy (HRT). Another study (Espeland et al, 1997) showed a decrease in body weight in taking HRT women compared to no-taking HRT women along a 3-year period. Another authors described that oral estrogen could lead to the body weight increase, probably reducing lipid oxidation (O’Sullivan et al, 1998). At the light of these findings, in postmenopausal women, it is still unclear the hormone therapy action on body composition
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