Evidence library · Body fat and weight

Does exercise with hormone therapy affect body fat and weight in menopause? What 7 studies found

Studies of exercise with hormone therapy in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women that measured body fat and weight. 3 reported an improvement and 2 found no difference against the comparison group.

  1. Postmenopausal women aged 40 to 66 did a 1 year supervised resistance training program and gained lean mass and strength, with fat loss seen mainly in those also on hormone therapy.

    Mixed resultsRandomised trial · 233 women · 52 weeks · 2003PostmenopausalCited 55 timesPubMed

  2. Postmenopausal women who did 12 months of resistance and weight-bearing aerobic exercise gained lean mass and lost leg fat, regardless of hormone therapy use or changes in hormone levels.

    Reported an improvementRandomised trial · 94 women · 52 weeks · 2003PostmenopausalCited 63 timesPubMed

  3. A meta-analysis of postmenopausal women found physical exercise training reduced fat mass compared to placebo, and combining hormone therapy with exercise best reduced fat mass while preserving lean mass.

    Reported an improvementMeta-analysis · 2022PostmenopausalPubMed

  4. Postmenopausal women aged 65 plus took ultra-low-dose estrogen or placebo with calcium and vitamin D for 3 years, with no change found in muscle mass, body fat or physical performance.

    No difference foundRandomised trial · 167 women · 156 weeks · 2005PostmenopausalCited 40 timesPubMed

  5. Postmenopausal women did a 6-month supervised exercise weight-loss program with placebo, raloxifene or hormone therapy, and weight loss was linked to reduced bone density, especially without raloxifene or hormone therapy.

    Reported an improvementRandomised trial · 94 women · 26 weeks · 2005PostmenopausalCited 29 timesPubMed

  6. Postmenopausal women underwent a 6-month mainly exercise-based weight loss program with estrogen, raloxifene, or placebo; hormone therapy did not increase abdominal fat loss but improved some lipid and glucose measures.

    No difference foundRandomised trial · 119 women · 26 weeks · 2014PostmenopausalCited 11 timesPubMed

  7. Early postmenopausal women did 12 weeks of resistance training with placebo or transdermal estrogen; placebo group lost more fat mass, while estrogen group improved cholesterol and glucose markers.

    Mixed resultsRandomised trial · 31 women · 12 weeks · 2021Early postmenopausalCited 11 timesPubMed

How to read this. Each line is one study, summarised in plain language from its PubMed abstract, with the authors' own sentence underneath on the study page. A count of studies is not a verdict: trials differ in size, length and quality, and a result in one group of women may not hold in another. Nothing here is medical advice.

Summaries are generated, then checked by machine against the abstract they came from; any summary that could not be matched word for word was left out. Our clinical lead is reviewing the summaries topic by topic, and this note will change when that is done. Corpus last refreshed 2026-11-03. Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we will fix the summary or remove the study.

Other exercise types and body fat and weight