Health
Hit the Gym to Beat Hot Flashes
A few weeks after Sandi Reese went off hormone replacement therapy, the hot flashes began. Then the mood swings hit.
"I didn't like the way I was feeling," said Reese, a 56-year-old Goochland County, Va., resident. "I went to my doctor and said, 'I want to go back on HRT.' She suggested exercise instead."
It worked. Reese took to the treadmill for an hour each day, five times a week. In two weeks, the hot flashes subsided. Feelings of stress melted away.
"Exercise definitely helps the symptoms," she said. "It's been great. I know I wouldn't be happy if I didn't exercise."
Reese is not alone in her belief that exercise can relieve menopausal symptoms. That link has been noted by fitness instructors and trainers who have seen the effect on hot flashes, insomnia, joint aches and weight gain often accompanying this phase of a woman's life.
But it's only now starting to get a closer look from researchers and from many women looking for natural ways to ease the symptoms of menopause. Fueling the scrutiny are recent questions about the safety of hormone replacement therapy and a National Institutes of Health panel calling for menopause to be "demedicalized."
One analysis of 12 menopausal women in an eight-week strength training program found that almost half of the women felt less anxious and half had less aching, stiffness and irritability. Another, even smaller, study found that yoga helped reduce participants' overall symptoms by 16 percent. Other researchers have found, however, that exercise programs produce little or no improvement of symptoms.
"The fact is that we know very little about the merits of exercise for menopausal symptoms," says Dr. Wendy S. Klein, senior deputy director of the VCU Institute for Women's Health. "It is a bit misleading to cite a study of 12 women and assume that the findings are relevant and generalizable, or to cite anecdotal reports and imply that this is proof of effect."
Lisa Martin, 51, of Midlothian, Va., said, "The only thing that relieved my symptoms was hormones." She said she stopped hormone replacement therapy years ago. "I've been exercising since I was 40. I do it because it's a good thing to do for your body. But it doesn't do a thing for my hot flashes."
Yet the prevailing wisdom is that exercise can be a benefit to some women who experience menopausal symptoms -- if not by actually reducing the frequency of hot flashes and other discomforts, then by generally improving their health.
