According to a study by American researchers, disturbed sleep can cause weight gain during menopause.
Menopause is the end of a woman’s reproductive period, usually around the age of 50. It is not a disease: it is a normal phase of women’s life, which corresponds to the stopping of the functioning of the ovaries (and therefore to the stopping of the production of ovarian hormones, namely estrogen and progesterone).
Symptoms associated with menopause (climacteric symptoms) may appear at the onset of peri-menopause. They are very variable, in type, intensity and duration, from one woman to another.
According to one study presented at ENDO 2021, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston (USA) established a link between sleep disturbances and weight gain. “Overall, our results suggest that sleep disturbances and estrogen suppression both lead to changes in the body’s use of nutrients, which may contribute to weight gain. These findings are important for understanding weight gain during menopause, when estrogen is low and sleep problems are common ”, explains Leilah Grant, principal investigator of the study.
80% of women gain between 3 and 8 kilos at the time of menopause
To better determine the role of sleep disturbances and hormonal changes in menopausal weight gain, US researchers asked 21 healthy pre-menopausal women to disrupt their sleep. The participants had two choppy nights of sleep, followed by three nights of interrupted sleep, where they were woken up by ringing every 15 minutes for 2 minutes each time. The researchers repeated the operation this time with 9 participants who were given a drug called “leuprolide,” which has the utility of temporarily suppressing estrogen to levels similar to menopause. The researchers then noticed a drastic reduction in the rate at which women’s bodies used fat after three nights of disturbed sleep, compared to a regular night’s sleep. An identical reduction in fat use has also been reported when estrogen was suppressed, even during a normal night’s sleep. For 80% of women, menopause results in weight gain of between 3 and 8 kilos.
Quality sleep to prevent significant weight gain
“Helping women sleep better during menopause may reduce a woman’s chances of gaining weight, which in turn will lower her risk of diabetes and other related diseases, “ explains Leilah Grant. With menopause, weight gain is often attributed to the drop in estrogen and the maintenance of testosterone production, which would promote the accumulation of fat. But with the help of this study, the researchers show that this decrease is not the only cause, since all women (during menopause) stop producing estrogen, but not all of them gain weight. “Another common symptom, which also affects about half of women during menopause, is sleep disturbance, which has been independently linked to changes in metabolism that could increase the risk of weight gain,” says researcher Leilah Grant.
