Menopause, Aging, and Muscle Loss Menopause has often been framed as a muscle-loss cliff. Human data do not support that. Pre- to post-menopausal comparisons are separated by about a decade, making it hard to disentangle menopause from normal aging. In that decade, you'd expect to lose ~6-10% of your muscle mass. What may wobble more during menopause is function. O’Bryan et al. reported accelerated declines in several neuromuscular outcomes around the age of menopause onset, with changes in torque and power emerging around the fourth decade. But even there, the story is not simple. Body composition, physical activity, protein intake, and sex hormones all clustered with the observed changes, so this is not a clean “it’s just hormones” story. It is more likely that hormones interact with lifestyle, symptoms, and aging. MSK pain: real and a big deal Kruse et al. reviewed 37 studies in 93,021 women and showed that muscle or joint pain was reported in 40% of premenopausal women, 57% ...