Good news for women taking hormone therapy for menopause: You might find that weight-loss drugs are more effective.

Women on hormone therapy lost 35% more weight while taking Zepbound (tirzepatide), researchers recently reported in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynecology & Women’s Health.

“The magnitude of this difference warrants future studies that could help clarify how GLP-1-based obesity medications and menopausal hormone therapy may interact,” said lead investigator Dr. Regina Castaneda, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.

“Interestingly, preclinical data suggest a potential synergy, with estrogen appearing to enhance the appetite-suppressing effects of GLP-1,” she added in a news release.

Menopause can accelerate age-related weight gain, increasing a woman’s odds of becoming overweight or obese, researchers said in background notes.

The change of life also can cause symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats, for which hormone therapy is the most effective first-line treatment, researchers said.

However, it isn’t yet clear how GLP-1 drugs might interact with hormone therapy, researchers said.

For the new study, researchers analyzed data from 120 overweight or obese women who were taking tirzepatide for weight management for a year or more, matching and comparing 40 women on hormone therapy matched against 80 not taking menopause treatment.

"In this observational study, women who used menopausal hormone therapy lost about 35% more weight than women taking tirzepatide alone,” senior researcher Dr. Maria Daniela Hurtado Andrade, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic, said in a news release.

However, “because this was not a randomized trial, we cannot say hormone therapy caused additional weight loss," she said.

"It is possible that women using hormone therapy were already engaged in healthier behaviors, or that menopause symptom relief improved sleep and quality of life, making it easier to stay engaged with dietary and physical activity changes,” Hurtado Andrade said.

The results warrant further investigation, researchers said.

"Next, we plan to test these observations in a randomized clinical trial and determine if benefits extend beyond weight loss — specifically, whether hormone therapy also enhances the effects of these medications on cardiometabolic measures," Hurtado Andrade said.

"If confirmed, this work could speed the development and adoption of new, evidence-based strategies to reduce this risk for millions of postmenopausal women navigating this life stage,” she concluded.

The findings were published Jan. 22.