Does exercise with supplements affect inflammation in menopause? What 14 studies found

Overweight postmenopausal women did 6 months of resistance and aerobic exercise with or without soy isoflavones; exercise reduced fat mass and increased lean mass, with no added benefit from isoflavones.

Reported an improvementRandomised trial · 100 women · 26 weeks · 2011PostmenopausalCited 65 timesPubMed

Obese postmenopausal women following a calorie-restricted diet and exercise, with or without soy isoflavones, for 6 months showed lower leptin and TNF-alpha, with adiponectin rising only in the soy group.

Reported an improvementRandomised trial · 87 women · 26 weeks · 2011PostmenopausalCited 56 timesPubMed

Postmenopausal women did exercise plus Mediterranean diet, with or without soy isoflavones, for 24 months; the soy group showed greater drops in fat mass, glucose, insulin and inflammation markers.

Reported an improvementRandomised trial · 65 women · 104 weeks · 2012PostmenopausalCited 30 timesPubMed

In postmenopausal women aged 50 to 80, 8 weeks of avenanthramide supplementation reduced inflammatory markers after downhill walking compared to a low-dose control group.

Reported an improvementRandomised trial · 16 women · 8 weeks · 2014PostmenopausalCited 37 timesPubMed

In 72 postmenopausal women, 8 weeks of circuit resistance training at low or moderate intensity, with or without Zataria supplementation, reduced body fat and inflammatory markers RBP-4 and TNF-alpha.

Reported an improvementRandomised trial · 72 women · 8 weeks · 2019PostmenopausalCited 24 timesPubMed

Postmenopausal women did 10 weeks of combined aerobic and resistance training with or without isoflavone supplement; exercise alone was linked to lower total cholesterol and higher IL-8, with no added effect of isoflavone.

Mixed resultsRandomised trial · 32 women · 10 weeks · 2018PostmenopausalCited 27 timesPubMed

Obese postmenopausal women did 6 months of mixed exercise training with or without phytoestrogens, and both groups had reduced CRP and leptin, with no added benefit from phytoestrogens.

Reported an improvementRandomised trial · 52 women · 26 weeks · 2012PostmenopausalCited 28 timesPubMed

Overweight or obese postmenopausal women did 6 months of mixed exercise with isoflavone supplement or placebo; the isoflavone group showed greater reductions in fat mass and CRP inflammation than exercise alone.

Mixed resultsRandomised trial · 34 women · 26 weeks · 2014PostmenopausalCited 24 timesPubMed

In 31 postmenopausal women given soy or dairy milk for 28 days then a downhill run, soy supplementation did not reduce exercise-induced increases in muscle proteolysis genes.

No difference foundRandomised trial · 31 women · 4 weeks · 2012PostmenopausalCited 12 timesPubMed

Sixteen normotensive postmenopausal women did 30 minutes of aerobic exercise with or without l-arginine, and exercise alone lowered systolic blood pressure over 24 hours without changing inflammatory markers.

No difference foundRandomised trial · 16 women · 2016PostmenopausalCited 12 timesPubMed

In healthy older women, 8 weeks of resistance training combined with fish oil increased handgrip strength and lowered blood pressure and inflammatory markers more than resistance training with placebo.

Reported an improvementRandomised trial · 20 women · 8 weeks · 2023PostmenopausalCited 8 timesPubMed

Older postmenopausal women did elastic band resistance training with or without seawater supplement for 32 weeks, and both groups reported lower systolic blood pressure, with inflammation reduced in the seawater group.

Reported an improvementRandomised trial · 93 women · 32 weeks · 2024PostmenopausalCited 2 timesPubMed

Postmenopausal women with overweight or obesity did 16 weeks of resistance training and/or DHA supplementation, with muscle quality improving more with resistance training and cardiometabolic markers improving more with DHA.

Mixed resultsRandomised trial · 16 weeks · 2025PostmenopausalCited 1 timesPubMed

Breast cancer survivors will do resistance and aerobic exercise with omega-3 supplementation or education for 12 to 24 weeks to test effects on lean body mass; this is a study protocol with no results yet.

Direction not statedOther · 153 women · 24 weeks · 2014Midlife womenCited 12 timesPubMed