Strength Training Can
Build Postmenopausal Bone

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - New findings add weight to the idea that postmenopausal women can boost their bone density with strength training.

In fact, the study found, the more weight women lifted over a year, the greater the increase in bone density, at least around the hip area.

The findings appear in the January issue of the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.

Other research has pointed to the usefulness of weight-bearing exercise in cutting the risk of the brittle-bone disease osteoporosis after menopause. But many of these studies have been small, short or marred by design flaws, according to the authors of the new study.

To get around some of these shortcomings, the researchers followed 140 women, ages 44 to 66, who went through supervised strength training three times a week for one year.

All of the women took calcium supplements, and half were on hormone replacement therapy (HRT)--two tactics that protect bone density.

After one year, the women showed a bone-density boost in the femoral trochanter--the knobby end of the thigh bone near the hip--that increased in tandem with the total amount of weight they lifted over the study.

The effect was seen regardless of age, HRT use and bone density at the study's start, according to the researchers, led by Ellen C. Cussler of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Bone density at certain other sites, including the lower spine, was not affected by the amount of weight the women lifted. The researchers speculate that the exercises may have placed more impact on the femoral trochanter, to which a number of muscles attach.

Certain exercises that target these muscles, like squatting with weights, appeared most effective at building bone density in the trochanter.

However, Cussler and her colleagues stop short of making specific recommendations on which weight-bearing exercises might best protect women's bones.

"Because the performance in one exercise may depend on success in others," they write, "a well-balanced strength-training program still provides the most sensible approach to an osteoporosis prevention program."

SOURCE: Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 2003;35:10-17.

Reference Source 89

For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick Prevention Resources".