Menopause is a time when your ovaries stop producing eggs and estrogen and progesterone levels decline. Women who eat a healthy diet and exercise may experience fewer of the obvious signs of menopause – hot flashes, fatigue, anxiety and irritability. On the other hand, the risk for some health issues begins to rise significantly after menopause. Fortunately, these are health issues that can be prevented, at least to some degree, by making healthy lifestyle choices. Here are three health issues that increase after menopause and steps you can take to reduce your risk.
Changes in Body Composition
Many women notice a change in body composition after menopause. Loss of muscle mass accelerates, especially in women who don’t do resistance training. In addition, some women notice they store more fat around their tummy and waistline and less in their hips and thighs. Some of this increase in abdominal fat is visceral fat, deep abdominal fat that’s linked with a greater risk for heart disease and type 2-diabetes. Many women fear weight gain after menopause, but a study showed that weight gain is less of a problem than weight redistribution to the waist and abdominal area, the so-called apple shape.
Here’s the good news. A 2010 study showed that women who resistance trained avoided these changes in body composition when researchers followed them for 6 years. Resistance training is also vital for preserving lean body mass. Loss of lean body mass leads to a common condition called sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle tissue. It’s sarcopenia that causes older adults to become frail and be unable to physically do the things they used to do. Sarcopenia isn’t an inevitable consequence of aging. Resistance training increases muscle strength and muscle quality even in older adults. The ability to build new muscle tissue is maintained even into the ninth decade of life.
Heart Disease
Heart disease is significantly more common in men than women prior to menopause, but things “even up” after menopause as the risk for women rises. A variety of changes take place that makes heart disease more common. Some of these include changes in lipid levels, especially a drop in HDL-cholesterol, changes in the walls of blood vessels that make it easier for clots to form and a rise in fibrinogen, a protein that makes it easier for blood to form a clot that blocks an artery.
What can you do to lower your risk? Avoiding unhealthy habits like smoking, stick with your exercise routine, eat more fruits and vegetables, replace some of your animal protein with plant-based ones and make sure you’re getting enough fiber in your diet. Stay away from processed foods as much as possible, especially ones that contain trans-fat, high-fructose corn syrup or added sugar. Keep tabs of your blood pressure and lipids to make sure they’re staying in the normal range. Doing these things can significantly reduce your risk of heart disease.
Osteoporosis
As estrogen levels drop after menopause, bone resorption is greater than new bone production and this leads to a loss of bone density. Up to 1 out of 2 women over the age of 50 will experience a fracture due to osteoporosis during their lifetime. It’s a frightening statistic, especially considering the hip fractures have a high mortality rate. Women who are small-boned or thin, smoke, are Caucasian or Asian or have a family history of osteoporosis are at higher risk.
How can you lower your risk? Exercise is important here too. High-impact exercise and resistance training using heavy weights help to prevent bone loss. From a dietary standpoint, getting sufficient amounts of calcium and vitamin D is vital, but there’s evidence that magnesium and vitamin K2 also helps to maintain bone density. Nuts, whole grain foods, and spinach are all excellent sources of magnesium. Vitamin K2 is more difficult to get through diet. It’s found in greatest abundance in fermented foods like aged cheese, meat, and dairy from grass-fed animals and a fermented soy food called natto that’s popular in Japan.
The Bottom Line?
Menopause is a time of change and a time to make the lifestyle changes necessary to reduce the risk of health problems like these. Fortunately, diet and exercise play a significant role in reducing the risk of all three. They key is to do it!
References:
Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2010 Jul;42(7):1286-95.
Science Daily. “Menopause Does Not Cause Weight Gain, but Increases Belly Fat, Major Review Finds”
WebMD. “Women and Heart Disease”
Maturitas. 1999 Jan 4;31(2):161-4.
Nutrition. 2001 Oct;17(10):880-7.
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