Oestrogen and muscle

[Kimble]

I've read recently that weight training can help women whose oestrogen supplies are declining as they get into their 30s/40s/50s and beyond. Apparently, instead of the body making even more fat in order to store oestrogen as the ovarian function declines, it can use increased muscle to store oestrogen, or help the muscle to release more oestrogen - not sure which? - and thereby taking away some of the body's "need" to produce more fat in order to support hormone function.

If there are any trainers or people with medical knowledge on, could they please comment on this? If it's true, it's yet another reason for women to weight train with a programme like this one as they get older.

[Kimble]

Okaaaay! I'll try this question on a different Forum.

[kedg]

I don't have an answer, but if you find one, I'd be very interested in it. Good luck!

[A H]

I'm very interested in this response too. I have had problems with my estrogen levels in the past and was worried that the decrease in body fat might affect my estrogen levels again. if you get a response on another post I'd love to see what they come up with.

[Susan4]

Me too! My favorite herbalist calls that roll around the middle we all fight in peri- and menopause the "estrogen belt"...our body compensating for slowing ovaries. I'd rather store it in muscle myself if possible

[karenmc6]

** i am not a health professional, nor do i play one on tv - but i am married to one (ob/gyn) and i'm a pretty mean googler **

here's a quick estrogen primer (emphasis is mine):
Three steroid hormones-estradiol, estrone, and estriol-are known collectively by their function as estrogens. In postmenopausal women, following the decline of ovarian function, these estrogens are produced primarily in the adrenal glands.

The estrogenic potency of estradiol is 12 times that of estrone and 80 times that of estriol. Estradiol is synthesized from testosterone and androstenedione. Due to its potency, it plays a critical role in female sexual development, menstrual function, protein synthesis, cardiovascular function, bone formation and remodelling, cognitive function, emotional balance and other important health factors. It also may be the most stimulatory estrogen for promoting cell growth and proliferation.

After menopause, estrone becomes the primary estrogen as the ovary loses its ability to manufacture estradiol. Estrone is synthesized from androstenedione in the adrenal glands and from peripheral tissues by aromatization. Fat cells are especially rich in the aromatase enzyme that converts androstenedione to estrone. This explains why obese postmenopausal women often have higher circulating levels of estrogens.

Estriol is considered to be the mildest and briefest-acting of the three estrogens. Estriol is formed in the liver by conversion of either estradiol or estrone. Although there is evidence that a certain amount of estriol can be recirculated into the body via the liver or gut hydroly-sis, its conversion is believed to be more fixed than the other two estrogens, with a reduced ability to reconvert into more potent forms of estrogen.


since estrone is manufactured in the fat cells, it often lessens the menopausal symptoms of women with higher percentages of body fat - basically, leaner women have no additional estrogen stores, so when the ovaries quit estrogen production, these women experience more dramatic symptoms. as a matter of interest, estrone production does not begin during perimenopause, it's effects are just more pronounced. also, i haven't found any evidence that estrone production increases the incidence of abdominal fat in women, nor did i find that estrone is manufactured only in abdominal fat. some women do carry the majority of their fat in their abdomen, so it is very probable that the majority of estrone is manufactured in their abdomen which could be construed as a correlation. it's also possible that the this process is being confused with a very similar process that occurs in men. (and of which i know very little!)


as far as i can see, estrogen is neither manufactured or stored by muscle. however, a woman building muscle is generally decreasing fat stores which would affect the amount of estrone stores. whether this is a good thing or not, i really can't say. the research has fluctuated wildly over the years pro and con on ert (estrogen replacement therapy) with some of the major findings being a causative relationship between ert and breast cancer and the lack of heart protection in ert (unfortunately most women don't realize that cardiovascular disease is the #1 killer of women - almost 1/2 million a year - more than the next four causes combined - go red for women). also, it's been long known that resistence training is beneficial for improving bone density, even more so in conjunction with hormonal therapies.


i did find a few interesting studies:
Exercise reduces risk for breast cancer in postmenopausal women - pdf file 2004 study, check out page 4
Effects of Exercise Training and Hormone Replacement Therapy on Lean and Fat Mass in Postmenopausal Women - 2003 study
Effect of Physical Activity on Menopausal Symptoms in Non-Vigorously Active Postmenopausal Women - pdf file 2008 master thesis

i could probably be more helpful if you could provide more info on the article you were reading, kimble, or on the particular aspect of it you are interested.

oh, and i learned a lot too! karen

[Kimble]

Karen - thank you so much for going to all this trouble! I hope this is an OK topic for this Forum but, since NR is all about body-recomposition, I wanted to find out how far declining hormones might influence my body's ability to reduce fat.

The book I was reading is "Menopause without Weight Gain" by Debra Waterhouse, MPH, RD. ISBN 0 7225 3449 3 (UK record.) It's a book for all women whose hormones have started to decline (so from, say, early 30s onwards.) On page 87 she writes,

"Exercize also encourages fat release in another way. It helps your body to produce another source of oestrogen so that your fat cells can willingly shrink without compromising your health. A recent discovery is that exercize stimulates your muscle cells to manufacture 25% of the oestrogen your menopausal body needs. The more fit your muscles are, the more oestrogen they'll produce, the less work your fat cells have to do, and the more co-operative they'll become in releasing fat."

Sounds great, doesn't it? Unfortunately, the book is not footmarked throughout, although she gives an extensive list of sources at the back. I'm going through these trying to find the study she's citing but haven't found it yet - LOL! I'll post it as soon as I find it! In the meantime- yep! - any information gratefully received!

Thanks again - and I just hope all this is of help to some of us!

[karenmc6]

i googled the passage you posted and found an online copy of her book "outsmarting the midlife fat cell" so i think i'll give it a read - fascinating stuff! karen

[karenmc6]

well, i find debra waterhouse interesting, tho i'm not sure how much i believe in her "science". she has a lot of good info and advice, but most of her books were written ten years ago and she seems to be more interested in the sound byte than solid fact.

i found this line on another pseudo-science site: "did you know that with the help of an aromatase enzyme estrogen is also produced in your fat and muscle cells both before and after menopause?" i don't know anything about aromatase so i checked out wikipedia. i followed a few of the links in the further reading section, but didn't really come across much that relates to estrogen production in women and a google search brought up mostly aromatase supplements and meds. the best i could find was an abstract to a study i couldn't access:
▪ Abstract There is growing awareness that androgens and estrogens have general metabolic roles that are not directly involved in reproductive processes. These include actions on vascular function, lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, as well as bone mineralization and epiphyseal closure in both sexes. In postmenopausal women, as in men, estrogen is no longer solely an endocrine factor but instead is produced in a number of extragonadal sites and acts locally at these sites in a paracrine and intracrine fashion. These sites include breast, bone, vasculature, and brain. Within these sites, aromatase action can generate high levels of estradiol locally without significantly affecting circulating levels. Circulating C19 steroid precursors are essential substrates for extragonadal estrogen synthesis. The levels of these androgenic precursors decline markedly with advancing age in women, possible from the mid-to-late reproductive years. This may be a fundamental reason why women are at increased risk for bone mineral loss and fracture, and possibly decline of cognitive function, compared with men. Aromatase expression in these various sites is under the control of tissue-specific promotors regulated by different cohorts of transcription factors. Thus in principle, it should be possible to develop selective aromatase modulators (SAMs) that block aromatase expression, for example, in breast, but allow unimpaired estrogen synthesis in other tissues such as bone.


and here are a few more interesting links:
Dwindling estrogen in menopause could make women fat: study - 2007 - Lower estrogen levels in the brain, a drop that occurs during menopause, could lead to weight gain in older women

Weight Gain in Menopause - 2006 - weight gain does happen in menopause, but that's not to say that it happens because of menopause

Estrogen 101: The Basics of Estrogen and Your Hormones - no date -
But did you know that with the help of an aromatase enzyme estrogen is also produced in your fat and muscle cells both before and after menopause?
So your Estrogen levels are not totally dependent on your ovaries, there are a lot of other factors that come into play, like your diet and body composition.
There is so much variability in estrogen levels from woman to woman that in a study featured in the American Journal of Epidemiology on the Epidemiology of Serum Sex Hormones in Post Menopausal Women, it was demonstrated that the concentration of hormones in the blood had so much inconsistency that it was clear that neither age nor menopause had a clear cut correlation on hormone levels.
This study also revealed that the amount of body fat and lean muscle tone a woman has will affect the blood levels of estrogen, specifically estrone. And this makes sense since fat and muscle cells are key players in the production of estrogen - remember? There's that armoatase enzyme that helps convert the small amount of male sex hormones your body has to estrogens.
Now whether that conversion to estrogen happens in your fat cells or muscle cells may play a big role in the production of good or bad estrogen metabolites - more on this in the next part of this article, Estrogen 102. (estrogen 102 does not appear to have been written yet, unfortunately!)

Is Estrogen Really Making Your Belly FAT? - no date and same site as above


there is enough info out there to make your head spin. i am 43, so i am very interested in what is in my near future. my mom and her mother and sisters all had hysterectomies, so my mom had a medical menopause at 27, so i really don't know what to expect. and like my husband said, menopause has really only been a medical issue for about the last fifty years since before then women didn't live long enough. and it's only been the last twenty or so years that women have become proactive and started dialogs and demanded information. i didn't look here too much, but i'm sure the North American Menopause Society would be a good source of info, as would similar societies in other countries. karen

[Kimble]

Sheesh, Karen - you have been busy! Thank you so much. Yeah - what a shame Estrogen 102 hasn't been written (yet) - just when it was getting interesting ... Sometimes I feel I've read so much on this I'm going round in circles **sighs** I have surgical menopause and definitely feel it's harder to shift fat now. However, I'm going to give this programme a good try, even though I really do find it hard to get my head around eating so much!! At the moment my recommended calorie levels are about 1650-1850, but I'm going to reduce them by 100-150 - I don't think that's too drastic. Just want to get rid of this spare tyre - I know at 120 lbs people think it can't be too bad, but when you have a small frame and have been 105-110 for most of your adult life it feels hideous!