Effect of hormone therapy on muscle strength in postmenopausal women: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Abstract Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the overall effects of hormone therapy (HT) on muscle strength in postmenopausal women through a systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were systematically searched from the inception dates to August 2019. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared the effects of HT with either no therapy or placebo on muscle strength in postmenopausal women were eligible. The quality of studies was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Measurements of changes in muscle strength compared to baseline were extracted for pooled analysis. The effect size was calculated as standardized mean differences using a random effects model. Results: We identified nine studies with a combined population of 2,476 postmenopausal women. The studies included were assessed to be of good quality overall. The results showed that HT was not associated with muscle strength gain in postmenopausal women (standardized mean difference = 0.352; 95% confidence interval, −0.098 to 0.803; P = 0.125; I 2 = 95.3%). The changes in muscle strength in women receiving HT were not significant. The results were unchanged when stratified by treatment type, muscle group, and treatment duration. Conclusions: The use of HT was not associated with the improvement of muscle strength in postmenopausal women. This finding suggested that HT might not improve muscle strength or that the effect size was too small to identify significant therapeutic efficacy.