The effects of exercise training on body composition in postmenopausal women: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Mousa Khalafi; Aref Habibi Maleki; Mohammad Hossein Sakhaei; Sara K Rosenkranz; Mohammad Javad Pourvaghar; Mahsa Ehsanifar; Hadis Bayat; Mallikarjuna Korivi; Yubo Liu

doi:10.3389/fendo.2023.1183765

The effects of exercise training on body composition in postmenopausal women: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2023 Jun 14:14:1183765. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2023.1183765. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Mousa Khalafi¹, Aref Habibi Maleki², Mohammad Hossein Sakhaei³, Sara K Rosenkranz⁴, Mohammad Javad Pourvaghar¹, Mahsa Ehsanifar², Hadis Bayat⁵, Mallikarjuna Korivi⁶, Yubo Liu⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran.
² Department of Exercise Physiology and Corrective Exercises, Faculty of Sport Sciences, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran.
³ Department of Exercise Physiology, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Guilan, Rasht, Guilan, Iran.
⁴ Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, United States.
⁵ Department of Exercise Physiology, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
⁶ Institute of Human Movement and Sports Engineering, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China.

Abstract

Introduction: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the effect of exercise training on body composition outcomes in postmenopausal women.

Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, and Medline were searched to identify the randomized controlled trials which evaluated effect of exercise training versus control in postmenopausal women. Standardized mean differences (SMD), weighted mean differences (WMD) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated using random effects model.

Results: One hundred and one studies involving 5,697 postmenopausal women were included in the meta-analysis. Results indicated that exercise training effectively increased muscle mass/ volume, muscle and fiber cross-sectional area and fat-free mass, and decreased fat mass, body fat percentage, waist circumference and visceral fat. Furthermore, subgroup analyses results revealed that aerobic and combined training had greater beneficial effects on fat mass outcomes, whereas resistance and combined training had greater beneficial effects on muscle mass outcomes.

Discussion: Overall, our results revealed that exercise training is effective for improving body composition in postmenopausal women. To be specific, aerobic training is effective on fat loss, whereas resistance training is effective on muscle gain. However, combination of aerobic and resistance trainings may be considered a viable strategy to improve body composition in postmenopausal women.

Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier CRD42021283425.

Keywords: body composition; exercise training; fat mass; menopause; muscle mass.

Publication types

Meta-Analysis
Systematic Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Body Composition*
Exercise
Female
Humans
Intra-Abdominal Fat
Muscles
Postmenopause*

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the Public Welfare Project of Jinhua City, Science and Technology Research Plan/Public Health and Reproductive Health (grant number: 2021-4-228), and Jinhua Maimiao Education Technology Co., Ltd., (grant number: KYH06Y21383), Zhejiang province, China. The funder was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article, or the decision to submit it for publication.