The hidden threat of muscle loss after menopause and how bioidentical hormones can protect your physical future.
I’m Dr. Kathy Maupin and Medical Director of BioBalance® Healthcast. Today I am going to talk about why keeping your muscles strong is so important to your health after age 40, and the role that Testosterone plays in sustaining muscle mass. Testosterone Pellets + weight training +High Protein Diet will sustain a woman’s quality of life!
Today, we’re peeling back the layers on a topic that almost every woman facing the menopausal transition deals with—but almost no one is talking about. There is a silent thief lurking in the background your 40s, and most women not only ignore the symptoms, but also deny that they are experiencing a change in their muscle mass, strength and stamina. This inevitable muscle loss happens to every woman and is a physical decline that creeps up so gradually that most women don’t realize it’s happening. At some point women recognize they cannot lift as much as they did in the past, and they can’t easily get out of a chair without pushing up with their arms. Most women deny this is happening to them because it creeps up so slowly! I want to put a spotlight on this problem because most women deny their symptoms because they have NOT BEEN TOLD that this will happen unless they take certain steps to maintain their muscles and bones. The end point, as early as age 40, is weakness, sagging, useless muscles, stooped posture and a loss of their quality of life!
Loss of muscle mass with aging is called Sarcopenia—the age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass, muscle strength, ability to walk unassisted and impaired physical performance.
Please hear me. This is not IF it will happen to you, but WHEN? The sad truth is that currently doctors have not been told to treat women preventively for this inevitable problem. A recent study published in Menopause: The Journal of The Menopause Society looked closely at 106 postmenopausal women. The results were staggering. Over 45% of these women objectively had sarcopenia, and more than 76% had either full sarcopenia or early-stage muscle loss.
What did these women lose when they lost muscle? The women had to stop doing the things they did before age 50, both things they enjoyed and things they had to do in their daily life and work life. We call this change Impaired Quality of Life. This is REAL and it is universal unless you take certain steps to prevent it happening to you!
In my medical practice, BioBalance® Health I see this every day. Women come to me feeling weak and noticing their bodies changing. Conventional medicine tells them they are just “getting old”. I disagree. The current practice of medicine labels the changes that occur with the loss of testosterone, “getting old”, and imply nothing can be done about it. Doctors are taught to file this symptom in the trash and ignore this patient problem.
This is a great disservice to women. By replacing lost hormones with bioidentical non-micronized testosterone pellets this change that occurs after age 40 can be treated! At BioBalance® Health we measure muscle mass with an INBODY machine, and we treat this problem successfully every day. With testosterone pellets we watch our patients rebuild muscle mass, and reclaim their youthful, active lifestyle. We help our patients not only maintain their quality of life, but continue to weight train, run marathons, ski and hike throughout the last half of their lives. Stay tuned for the ideal plan to prevent this silent thief of our quality of life and happiness!!
Let’s break down the science of what happens during the 10 years before Menopause due to the loss of testosterone production from the ovary. Testosterone Deficiency triggers a dangerous domino effect and has recently been recognized as a change that begins at age 40.
After age 40, here is what happens:
- Your muscle mass begins to decrease, replacing muscle with fat.
- Your body composition changes
- Muscles stop burning calories which makes weight loss very difficult
- Stamina to work, exercise and stand for periods of time decreases
- Strength of the muscles decrease as muscles shrink
- Your bone density drops significantly.
- Your subcutaneous fat—the normal fat under your skin—increases
- Visceral fat in your belly increases
- Your risk for cardiovascular disease skyrockets, and cholesterol rises
- Blood sugar increases because muscle mass is burning fewer calories.
Let’s look at muscles and the effect testosterone has on them. Your muscles give you the ability to stand up, walk without fatigue, and they burn 90% of your calories. They stimulate bone thickness and your testosterone brings blood flow to your muscles to improve strength, muscle growth and clears the lactic acid from your muscles so you aren’t sore after physical exercise. Testosterone is a highly anabolic hormone, meaning that it builds and maintain tissues. When these hormones hit rock bottom, your body stops repairing muscle fibers efficiently. Muscles no longer grow and they get smaller and fattier when you exercise. Most of my patients who exercise and pay attention to their strength and muscle mass tell me that before testosterone pellets when they exercised they ached, felt more tired, not less after exercise, and they didn’t grow muscle but lost muscle the more they exercised!
Testosterone levels are directly related to the amount of muscle mass a woman has, how strong she is, how much stamina she feels and now a new study has linked our quality of life to our muscle mass and our testosterone levels! Free Testosterone blood level-amount of muscle and strength Quality of LIfe
In a recent groundbreaking, peer-reviewed study recently published in the Journal Menopause titled “Quality Of Life In Postmenopausal Women and Its Association With Sarcopenia” shed some serious light on just how pervasive sarcopenia is in menopausal. It looked at women navigating life after menopause, assessing their symptoms via the Menopause Rating Scale, or MRS, alongside objective physical tests. Then they tested them for muscle mass and strength.
Let me remind you that these women were menopausal but the effect of NO TESTOSTERONE on their bodies had been working for a decade before these tests were done! Women have a window of opportunity from 40-50 to replace testosterone with pellets and prevent the changes that we have just described. The Sarcopenia study looked at the duration of the time women have been menopausal and the level of their increasing physical disability and Somatic (physical) Symptoms.
What are somatic symptoms? They are the physical burdens of menopause: joint aches, muscle pain, chronic fatigue, and sleep disturbances. If your muscles are weak, your joints have to work twice as hard to support your body weight. This leads to chronic inflammation, arthritis pain, and orthopedic injuries. Somatic symptoms listed are the downstream effects of greater than 5 years of loss of testosterone and estradiol.
Recently I went on a river cruise to see a part of Portugal that is impossible to see in a car, and I have never seen so many disabled people both men and women who could not walk with any speed or balance. I was surprised how many intelligent and productive people had lost their physical ability to walk around and balance, to climb stairs and even to get out of a chair without help…My husband and our friends are between 65 and 75 and we all take testosterone pellets. We had no trouble with the walking tours and climbing around vineyards. The enjoyable outings provided by the tour were not hard or stressful to us but were painful and impossible for many or our fellow travelers –so much so that they could not join the group for many of the tours.
Of course, my friends and husband and I have been following the advice I am giving you for decades and we were strong and energetic and able to do whatever was planned. Remember, when you save for your retirement and think of travel, think first of saving your body and mind through testosterone pellet replacement, diet and weight training before you are in this situation! It is impossible to fully reverse this process, but adding testosterone at any age will improve your condition.
What should You do to prevent devolving into disability?
The BioBalance Solution: Bioidentical Testosterone Pellets
This study concludes by stating that it is essential to assess all women for sarcopenia during perimenopause (the stage of life between 40-50) so we can advise them on how to improve muscle mass and strength. But how do we actually do that?
We Measure muscle mass
First, we evaluate our patient’s muscle mass at the first and second consultation and yearly with a Body Composition machine called the INBODY to mark body composition progress and to help troubleshoot any lifestyle changes they are having trouble following.
Our advice is decades ahead of conventional medicine
We have been going above and beyond what conventional medicine tells patients for almost 25 years. What is the difference? Conventional medicine will tell you to just eat more protein and lift weights. While nutrition and exercise are highly important components of making and maintaining muscle mass, it doesn’t work if you don’t have enough testosterone. If your body lacks testosterone, your muscles simply cannot synthesize protein effectively to rebuild muscle mass and grow with weight training. You can put in the effort, but your progress will be slight or nil.
At BioBalance® Health we treat the problem effectively by replacing Testosterone. and Estradiol with bio-identical pellets. We utilize specialized bioidentical hormone pellet therapy. Pellets are small, custom-compounded cylinders placed under the skin in the fat of your hip. They dissolve slowly, releasing a steady, natural dose of bio-identical testosterone with or without estradiol directly into your bloodstream 24/7. The blood levels are steady and do not fluctuate daily like other forms of testosterone and estradiol.
- Testosterone Pellets: Testosterone is the “secret female hormone.” It gives women their physical youth back. It reverses muscle wasting, osteoporosis, boosts energy, decreases body fat sharpens mental clarity, builds bone and muscle and restores a healthy libido. Testosterone is the key hormone to maintain a woman’s Quality of Life.
- Estrogen Pellets: Reversing estrogen deficiency stops bone loss, relieves severe vaginal dryness, painful intercourse and bladder symptoms.,
We advise our patients to change their diet and exercise to optimize their muscle growth, strength and stamina. We ask them to work out with weights (not heavy) 2-3 times a week for one and recommend a diet high in protein food and low in carbohydrates. The Mediterranean diet with eggs (yes, the yolks) meat, fish, poultry, nuts and milk products (if tolerated) plus daily olive oil is the best diet for making muscle.
At BioBalance® Health we do not just look at a lab sheet and say you are “normal” because you fall into a generic reference range for an aging population. We treat you based on your actual symptoms and health goals, and compare you to healthy, young levels found in women between 20-40 year olds.
If you are over 40 and want to protect your independence, keep your balance, and maintain strong muscles for the rest of your life, you have to take testosterone pellets, and estradiol if menopausal, plus eat a high protein diet and weight train at least 3 times a week for an hour.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the BioBalance® Healthcast. Take care of your muscles, get your testosterone replaced with pellets, eat a high protein diet and start weight training 2-3 times a week, every week! This is your insurance that you will be able to take care of yourself independently throughout your life!
This Health cast was written and presented by Dr. Kathy Maupin, M.D., Bio-identical Hormone Replacement Expert and Author. www.BioBalanceHealth.com • (314) 993-0963. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel and please check “ Like “. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at BioBalanceHealth.
