In the authors' words
“Exercise does not seem to decrease the risk of having menopause symptoms in overweight, postmenopausal women not taking hormone therapy and may increase the severity of some symptoms in a small number of women.”
What was measured
- Hot flushes Reported a worsening
- Menopause symptoms overall No difference found
- Memory and thinking Reported an improvement
About the study
- Type
- Randomised trial
- Who took part
- Postmenopausal, overweight or obesity
- How many
- 173
- How long
- 52 weeks
- Exercise
- Other aerobic exercise
- Cited
- 81 times, per Europe PMC
- PubMed ID
- 15243275
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.
Similar studies
- A meta-analysis of 21 trials in 2884 menopausal women found structured exercise slightly improved hot flush severity but not frequency, with very low certainty evidence.
- An overview of 17 reviews covering 80 studies found yoga improved physical, urogenital, and total menopause symptoms, while aerobic exercise findings were inconclusive.
- A review of eight randomised trials in climacteric women found aerobic exercise improved menopause symptoms and quality of life, while resistance training strengthened muscles and increased bone density.
- A systematic review of 11 studies in peri and postmenopausal women found pelvic floor and mind-body exercise programs most linked to improved sexual function, while aerobic exercise showed inconsistent results and resistance training showed no benefit.