A new US study has found that older women have more difficulty than their male counterparts in maintaining muscle mass.

The research by US and British teams suggests that this is the case because it is harder for women to replace muscle that naturally decreases with age. The difference is not evident in younger men and women.

Twenty-nine healthy men and women aged between 65 and 80 took part in the study, which showed that the female participants had a lesser ability to build muscle mass through the use of protein. The researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis and The University of Nottingham speculated that this difference in the way that the male and female bodies react to food may be due to women’s menopause-related hormone changes, in particular, oestrogen, which is needed to maintain bone mass.

Professor of clinical physiology at the University of Nottingham, Michael Rennie, said, ‘Nobody has ever discovered any mechanistic differences between men and women in muscle loss before. This is a significant finding for the maintenance of better health in old age, and reducing demand on health-care systems’.

The researchers said that because of the muscle building challenge experienced by older women, they should consciously eat more protein-rich foods and undertake strength straining; ‘Rather than eating more, older people should focus on eating a higher proportion of protein in their everyday diet. In conjunction with resistance exercise, this should help to reduce the loss of muscle mass over time. There is also a case for the beneficial hormonal effect of limited HRT (hormone replacement therapy), although this has to be balanced against the other risks associated with such treatment’ said Rennie.

After the age of 50, people lose up to 0.4 per cent of their muscle mass annually. The researchers noted that this decline in muscle contributes to the risk of falls, a major cause of early death in older adults, making the need for active strength training and muscle building even more important.