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 "Resistance training is already recommended for all women always,
but now we can see it may be effective also for hot flashes around
menopause," Dr. Emilia Berin of Linkoping University in Sweden, who
led the study, told Reuters Health.
Hormone therapy is the most effective treatment for hot flashes and
night sweats, which plague most women during menopause, Berin's team
writes in the journal Maturitas. Some studies suggest that exercise
may help quell hot flashes as well, but others have found no effect,
they note.
Berin and her colleagues randomly assigned 58 women experiencing at
least four moderate-to-severe hot flashes or night sweats daily to
15 weeks of resistance training or to a control group whose members
did not change their physical activity. None of the study
participants exercised regularly before the trial and none had used
hormone therapy in the prior two months.
The workout group's regimen included three weekly 45-minute
sessions, with six exercises on resistance machines and two using
body weight. Women worked out with lighter weights for the first
three weeks, then with progressively heavier loads.
The exercise group averaged 7.5 hot flashes or night sweats a day at
the beginning of the study, and after 15 weeks were having an
average of 4.4 episodes a day. There was virtually no change in the
control group participants, who went from 6.6 to 6.5 hot flashes
daily.
The training program was challenging for the study participants,
Berin noted in a phone interview. "To actually push themselves
harder than they were used to was new to them. They had to be
encouraged to increase the load more so they would get the effects
of the training," she said. "After they progressed, they enjoyed it
and almost everyone continued to exercise after the intervention."
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Future research should look at whether resistance training could
benefit other groups who suffer from hot flashes but can't or won't
take hormones, including breast cancer patients and prostate cancer
patients on androgen-deprivation therapy, Berin added.
Menopausal women (or anyone) interested in starting resistance
training should begin with lighter loads in the first week to avoid
injury, Berin said. "Get instruction so that you're doing it right,
and then don't be afraid to push yourself and increase the load."
"Women who are not candidates for hormone therapy or prefer to avoid
hormones at menopause need tested alternatives to help with hot
flashes, night sweats and sleep disruption," said Dr. JoAnn
Pinkerton, executive director of the North American Menopause
Society and a professor at the University of Virginia Health System
in Charlottesville, who wasn't involved in the trial.
"Exercise has shown mixed results for reducing hot flashes in
symptomatic menopausal women," Pinkerton said by email. "It is
exciting that this most recent study of 15 weeks of resistance
training showed a decrease in the frequency and severity of moderate
and severe hot flushes among postmenopausal women," she added.
"Exercise has many benefits for postmenopausal women, with decreased
incidence of heart disease, bone loss and cancer, and thus finding
that it worked to reduce hot flashes gives us another reason to
recommend resistance training as well as cardio exercise for all the
benefits including improvement in hot flashes," Pinkerton said.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/30zzylf Maturitas, online May 14, 2019.
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