Key result
Exercise training markedly increases cardiorespiratory fitness and lower-body strength in post-menopausal women versus controls.
Why the study?
Cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular strength decline with age and menopause, posing CVD risks, but previous meta-analyses on exercise benefits in post-menopausal women remain inconclusive.
Does exercise training improve cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular strength in post-menopausal women?
Meta-Analysis (n=7,141)
Does exercise training improve cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular strength in post-menopausal women?
Exercise training, including aerobic and resistance modalities, significantly improves cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular strength in post-menopausal women, offering potential cardioprotective benefits.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Supports recommending exercise training for post-menopausal women; confirms large effects on fitness and strength from Level 1 evidence.
Background and aim Both cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and muscular strength are reported to decrease with age and menopause, which considered to be risk for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Previous relevant meta-analyses are inconclusive on the beneficial effects of exercise, particularly in post-menopausal women. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we investigated the effects of exercise modalities on CRF and muscular strength in post-menopausal women, and identified the effective exercise type and duration. Methods A comprehensive search was conducted on PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, and Medline to identify the randomized controlled trials, which evaluated exercise effect on CRF, lower- and upper-body muscular strength, and/or handgrip strength in post-menopausal women and compared the results with control. Standardized mean differences (SMD), weighted mean differences (WMD), and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated using random effects models. Results A total of 129 studies comprising 7,141 post-menopausal women with mean age and BMI ranging from ∼53 to 90 years and 22 to 35 kg/m 2 , respectively, were included in the meta-analysis. Overall, exercise training effectively increased CRF (SMD: 1.15; 95% CI: 0.87, 1.42; p = 0.001), lower-body muscular strength (SMD: 1.06; 95% CI: 0.90, 1.22; p = 0.001), upper-body muscular strength (SMD: 1.11; 95% CI: 0.91, 1.31; p = 0.001), and handgrip strength (WMD: 1.78 kg; 95% CI: 1.24, 2.32; p = 0.001) in post-menopausal women. These increments were found to be irrespective of ages and intervention durations. Regarding exercise type, aerobic, resistance, and combined training significantly increased CRF and lower-body muscular strength, while resistance and combined training effectively increased handgrip strength. However, only resistance training increased the upper-body muscular strength in women. Conclusion Our findings suggest that exercise training is effective in increasing CRF and muscular strength in post-menopausal women, which might be cardioprotective. Both aerobic and resistance training alone or in combination increased CRF and lower-body muscular strength, but only resistance training increased upper-body strength in women. Systematic Review Registration https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=283425 , identifier: CRD42021283425.
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Khalafi et al. (2023) conducted a meta-analysis in Post-menopausal women (n=7,141). Exercise training vs. Non-exercise control was evaluated on Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) (SMD 1.15, 95% CI 0.87, 1.42, p=0.001). Exercise training effectively increased cardiorespiratory fitness (SMD 1.15) and lower-body muscular strength (SMD 1.06) in post-menopausal women compared to non-exercise controls.
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