Hormone Replacement Therapy Effects In Post Menopausal Women

The reduction in cardiovascular risk induced by hormone replacement therapy is only partly explained by changes in serum lipids and lipoproteins. As body composition and body fat distribution in particular are independent predictors of cardiovascular disease, we investigated the effect of postmenopausal hormone therapy on body composition parameters directly measured. Sixty-two early postmenopausal women were followed up for 2 years in a prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled study. We found that combined estrogen-progestogen therapy prevented the increase in abdominal fat after menopause (P < .05), and that this effect was independent of the effect on serum lipids and lipoproteins. The therapy reduced postmenopausal bone loss significantly (P < .001), whereas it did not have a statistically significant influence on total body fat mass or total lean body mass. The findings of the present study suggest that some of the protective impact of postmenopausal hormone therapy on cardiovascular disease may be explained by the effect on body composition, in particular abdominal fat.

2022, Experimental Gerontology

To be blunt, many well meaning health care providers seem to have a strong aversion to prescribing HRT to patients due to not papers that have been published & retracted because of faulty data.

The evidence have since shown that HRT is significantly beneficial in women’s health in most cases. For example, estrogen deficiency accompanied with abnormal adipose function strongly contributes to impaired glucose metabolism and the development of type 2 diabetes as been published in the Journal, Experimental Gerontology and others. Since estrogen hormones are potent regulator of body composition, energy balance, and glucose metabolism, they have been shown to selectively prevent an increase in visceral fat mass in postmenopausal women. However, evidence concerning the effects of estrogen on glucose homeostasis is controversial.

Increased visceral fat is strongly associated with a series of metabolic complications. Postmenopausal women have an increased risk of visceral fat accumulation, metabolic disorders, and a high incidence of cardiovascular events. However, the effect of estrogen replacement therapy on visceral adipose tissue among postmenopausal women of different ages remains controversial, and the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Hence, it is important to understand when estrogen replacement therapy affects the function of visceral adipose tissue (VAT). Therefore, VAT was collected from pre- and post-menopausal females and it was observed that increased pro-inflammatory cytokines and insulin resistance-inducing factors, decreased insulin-sensitizing factors, and thermogenic factors in VAT of postmenopausal women. The analysis of adipocytes isolated from the VAT of females of different ages indicated that adiponectin and browning signature genes were significantly decreased with estrogen treatment in postmenopausal women, but were not altered in the young group.

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