Does menopause actually slow your metabolism?

If you don’t read any further, the key take-away here is: You are not at the mercy of a “menopausal metabolism”. Maintaining your muscle, strength and movement as you get older, for both men and women, really matters, and there is still so much within your power that you can influence.

“Menopause slows your metabolism.” Or does it?

This is something I have heard a lot over the years and regularly on social media, you may have heard this too - and because this narrative has been around for so long I’m sure many of you may think that it is true. But it’s time to challenge this and bust the myth!

You know I don’t really like talking aesthetics and weight, there is so much nuance in this conversation - but to speak generally, yes, our bodies can change during our 40s and 50s in ways we might find hard to accept. We might be seeing that now in our own bodies in fact, or (without judgement) we might be able to acknowledge how the bodies of older women (and men) around us have changed with age.

Perhaps you have noticed a change in your own body composition, or feel like your body isn’t responding the way it used to - these are common themes when I start working with new clients.

And it makes sense that because many of us are witnessing these things happening in our own bodies, and especially because we’ve been told it and sold it - that we link, and believe these changes are because of hormonal shifts related to perimenopause.

But I’ve gone down a bit of a rabbit hole with this recently, looking at the research behind “menopause and metabolism”, and actually, the honest evidence we have, doesn’t support the idea that menopause itself slows our metabolism. There is quite a story behind how we got to these links in the first place…let me introduce you to a naughty, naughty man called Eric.

Some of the research behind hormonal shifts and metabolism was falsified.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Eric Poehlman was considered one of the leading researchers looking at ageing, menopause, metabolism and body composition. His research was widely published and cited and helped shape a lot of the thinking around what happens to women’s metabolism as we get older.

His work contributed to the idea that menopause itself was directly linked to a decline in metabolic rate (that is the amount of energy or calories your body burns over a specific period of time). But it was then discovered that Poehlman had been falsifying data.

An investigation found that he had fabricated and manipulated research data, including data around energy expenditure, resting metabolic rate, fat-free mass and body fat, and had also used falsified data in applications for US government research funding.

He eventually admitted to 54 findings of scientific misconduct, agreed to retract or correct ten publications and was permanently excluded from receiving federal research funding. He was convicted and sentenced to prison for research fraud (Office of Research Integrity; Dahlberg & Mahler, 2006). What a $%^&.

But we’re still using this message to sell to women.

Now we have decades of this narrative to undo and help the millions of women, the healthcare systems, the press, the patriarchy, wherever else this has spun off, that absorbed and circulated this information, know the truth. From a personal perspective, I think this is worth talking about because we are still (of course - this is going to take a long time to undo) seeing so much being sold to women on the basis that our metabolism changes at menopause and how to “solve” or “fix that”.

You’ve probably seen the messaging. What worked for you in your 20s and 30s won’t work anymore. Your hormones have changed. Your metabolism has slowed. You need to exercise differently now. You need to eat differently now. Take this supplement now. Etc. Etc. Etc. And, conveniently, here is the programme, supplement, diet or method that will sort that out for you. Comment “MENOBELLY” to learn more 🥱.

So, what does the valid research actually tell us?Well looky here, men and women follow remarkably similar patterns as they get older - but I don’t see billions of pounds being thrown at male marketing for their changing metabolism, do you?! Funny that.

The truth is: Men and women follow remarkably similar patterns.

In 2021, Pontzer and colleagues published a huge study in Science, looking at energy expenditure in 6,421 people from 29 different countries, ranging in age from eight days old to 95 years old.

They used something called doubly labelled water, which is considered the gold-standard way of measuring how much energy somebody uses while they are actually going about their normal life.

Once they accounted for differences in body size and body composition, energy expenditure was remarkably stable from around the age of 20 until 60. (Pontzer et al., 2021)

The really important thing to take away is, there wasn’t a sudden metabolic change in women during their 40s and 50s, which surely is what we would expect to see if menopause itself was causing our metabolism to slow? AND!! Men and women actually followed remarkably similar patterns as they got older. (Pontzer et al., 2021)

So rather than there being something uniquely happening to women's metabolism during peri and post menopause, we need to look at what else is changing as we get older.

So what about peri-post menopausal women specifically?

There is this study that’s particularly relevant and this moves away from “hormones” being blamed for changes in metabolism, to decreased activity levels being the determining factor.

The MONET study followed 102 women, who were around 50 at the beginning of the study, for five years. Their body composition, resting energy expenditure and physical activity were measured every year. (Duval et al., 2013).

The women who became postmenopausal did see their total energy expenditure decrease, but their average resting energy expenditure remained stable.

So what that means is, it was their physical activity levels that had changed, doing less moderate activity and spending more time sedentary, not a hormonal link to metabolic changes. (Duval et al., 2013).

How much we move as we get older matters.

Typically, we do tend to move less as we get older, I’m sure we all witness this. Routines change, we might spend more time sitting, we might not be doing as much that challenges our muscles. AND unless we actively do something to maintain it, we can lose muscle mass as we age (you will have heard that one from me before!).

But this isn't unique to women. Men experience age-related changes in muscle mass, activity and energy expenditure too. But we must appreciate the indirect effect perimenopausal symptoms and this life-transition can have on our ability, or desire to move as much as recommended.

If you’re having night sweats and haven't slept properly for months, of course you might move less. If you're exhausted, experiencing migraines, struggling with your mood or simply not feeling like yourself, of course that might affect whether you want to exercise.

Then add work, children, ageing parents, injuries, pelvic health symptoms, life generally being pretty full...there are so many reasons why our activity might change during exactly the same years that our hormones are changing. So your hormonal landscape absolutely affects how we can influence our metabolism.

But the narrative that “your oestrogen has dropped, therefore your metabolism has slowed down” is too simple an explanation for what is actually going on.

Focusing on this research is encouraging…

…because if everything that happens to our bodies, potentially from 35 onwards, is the inevitable consequence of declining hormones, that doesn't leave us with very much to work with.

But the Duval and Pontzer research gives us a much more nuanced picture, and brings us back to some fairly simple things that we can influence.

• Maintaining muscle mass matters, so we strength train. Our bones need loading, so we load them and we jump if that works for us.

• Our cardiovascular fitness matters, so we work on that too.

• And we keep walking, moving and doing things we enjoy outside of structured exercise because our workouts aren't the only movement that counts.

• We also make space for recovery, because there will be times during perimenopause when all those symptoms interfere with what we feel capable of.

We can come back to my mantra! We take what we can, with the energy we have, in the capacity we are able. And we repeat.

And if you would like support doing all that - Smart Move, my online, on-demand programme could be a good fit for you. £40 a month. 1-2-1 support from me. Optional private community. Doors open 1-4 January, April and October.

If you would like to join the waiting list for the next intake - please drop me a message. You aren’t obliged to join, but you will get first dibs on the limited spaces available.

Enjoyed this article? Then you can sign up to my newsletter here.

I am not a medical professional, this does not constitute medical advice and please always seek advice from your GP or healthcare professional for all matters discussed in this article, or otherwise.

The research

Pontzer H, Yamada Y, Sagayama H, et al. (2021). Daily energy expenditure through the human life course. Science, 373(6556), 808–812. DOI: 10.1126/science.abe5017.

Duval K, Prud’homme D, Rabasa-Lhoret R, et al. (2013). Effects of the menopausal transition on energy expenditure: a MONET Group Study. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 67, 407–411. DOI: 10.1038/ejcn.2013.33.

Office of Research Integrity, US Department of Health and Human Services. Case Summary: Eric T. Poehlman.

Dahlberg JE & Mahler CC. (2006). The Poehlman case: running away from the truth. Science and Engineering Ethics.