After menopause women still have what it takes to burn fat

A new research study from the University of California at Berkeley shows that postmenopausal women still have the ability to increase their ability to burn fat during exercise.



Previous research has shown that as people age their metabolisms slow down, including their ability to burn fat during exercise. While younger people can effectively burn fat for fuel, they also have the ability to burn even more fat if they train hard (by exercising 4-6 times per week). However nobody knew whether older women would respond in the same way. "Research on older people is lacking," says study author Matthew Johnson, "and especially in women immediately after menopause."



So the UC Berkeley group took 10 postmenopausal women who had not been exercising for several years and tested their ability to burn fat during exercise. As expected, their ability was less than half that of younger women! Then the UC Berkeley group trained the women on an exercise bike for 10 weeks. The women came to the laboratory, listened to classic rock, Celine Dione, and Michael Bolton for an hour a day, 4-6 days per week.



When the 10 weeks were over the UC Berkeley group tested the women again at the same workload they had done previously in the lab and found that they had almost doubled their fat oxidation!



"This is really exciting research because it adds to the body of literature showing that no matter what your age you can improve your bodies ability to burn fat for energy, you simply need to stay active, and it’s never to late," says Johnson.



The research article is currently ahead of print in the Journal of Applied Physiology from the American Physiological Society



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