Women’s Health and Some Prevalent Health Conditions They Might Face
When it comes to women’s health, there is a large variety of things that can be discussed. From loss of muscle mass to hormonal changes that arise from menopause and perimenopause, women have a wide variety of things that can affect them, especially as they age in life. Some of the topics we will briefly discuss are Sarcopenia, or loss of muscle with aging, Osteoporosis, a disease that affects your bones, and Menopause and how exercise can impact and improve these conditions and issues.
Menopause
As women go through menopause, hormones are all over the place wreaking havoc on the body. One of the things that can happen is an excess amount of body fat accumulating from your hormonal changes. Exercise will not only help you burn more calories to keep balance, but it will help fight off the muscle that is naturally lost with aging in women. Many women attribute their weight gain with menopause is due to hormone changes, but most studies find that women who are physically active in general are less likely than sedentary women to gain weight.
Sarcopenia
Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle and strength as someone gets older and decreases their physical activity. According to the Office on Women’s Health, starting at the age of 30, women will lose 3-5% of muscle mass per decade. If they do not do anything to keep it in check, it will eventually lead to sarcopenia. Loss of abilities can lead to a decreased independence, and a lower ability to carry out your activities of daily living (shopping, walking the dog, going up and down stairs, etc.)
There is more research that needs to be done, but it has been shown that higher protein intake, amino acids, vitamin D, magnesium, and omega 3 supplementation has promising outcomes on muscle loss. According to the USDA, a person should be getting around .54 grams of protein per lb of body weight per day to help maintain muscle and fight off the effects of accelerated muscle loss. (1) So, if you weigh 120 lb, you should be getting about 65 grams of protein per day. Some will also say that getting around 1 gram per lb of body weight is also good. In general, aiming to increase your intake should be your goal to move towards.
Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis is a disease of the bones that causes them to become weak and frail. It is a later stage disease, but it is something that can be treated starting from a young age.
Broken bones resulting from osteoporosis can cause disability and other health issues in older women if they do not take steps to improve their condition. It is estimated that 10 million Americans have osteoporosis, and more than 80% of those individuals are women. Women are more likely to get this disease due to a few factors, such as women having less dense, thinner, and smaller bones than men. They also often live longer than men, so, as they age the likelihood of this disease to occur also increases.
Increased likelihood of frailty can quickly snowball into falls and if your bones are weakened, broken bones can result from a fall.
In summary, exercise and activity, proper nutrition and management of stress are all tied together to treat many conditions that women can incur as they age. They may not be the root cause of the conditions coming on, but using these tools consistently can help improve your condition(s) and situations you might find yourself in as life goes on its natural course. When deciding what types of exercise to consider, I would strongly encourage a wide variety of options. Yoga, strength training sessions, cardio of your choice, stretch classes, aqua classes or swimming, are great choices and the list goes on and on. There are many aspects that each person might find enjoyable and stress reducing. Finding a sense of community is also huge in today’s world. Not being alone has been a large reported factor in keeping people exercising and enjoying the forms of exercise that they find.