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Hormones, weight change and menopause
K M Davies1, R P Heaney, R R Recker
1Creighton University, Osteoporosis Research Center, 601 North 30th Street, Omaha, NE 68131, USA.
Objective:
To determine total body weight change occurring in women at mid-life, specifically with respect to occurrence of menopause and use of estrogen.
Design:
Retrospective analysis of body weight measurements accumulated in two cohorts of healthy women participating in studies of skeletal metabolism.
Subjects:
Cohort 1: 191 healthy nuns enrolled in a prospective study of osteoporosis risk, aged 35-45 in 1967; cohort 2: 75 women aged 46 or older and still menstruating, enrolled in 1988 in a study of bone cell dynamics across menopause. Roughly one-third of each group received hormone replacement after menopause.
Measurements:
Body weight and height, age, menstrual status and use of estrogen replacement. Cohort 1: 608 measurements at 5 y intervals spanning a period from 17 y before to 22 y after menopause; cohort 2: 1180 measurements at 6-month intervals spanning a period from 5 y prior to 5 y after menopause.
Results:
In cohort 1 weight rose as a linear function of age (both chronological and menopausal), both before and after cessation of ovarian function, at a rate of approximately 0.43% y(-1). Neither the menopausal transition nor the use of estrogen had an appreciable effect on this rate of gain. In cohort 2 the rate of gain seemed to diminish slightly at menopause. As with cohort 1, hormone replacement (or its absence) had no appreciable effect on weight.
Conclusions:
The long-term, total body weight trajectory at mid-life is not influenced appreciably by either cessation of ovarian function or by hormone replacement.