Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown in Exercising Early Postmenopausal Women

University of Erlangen-Nürnberg Medical School

Status: Completed

Conditions: Muscle Atrophy; Muscle Weakness; Detraining; Exercise

Treatments: Other: Sham intervention; Other: HIT-exercise

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04420806

ER_ACTLIFE_FU

Details and patient eligibility

About

While "conditioning" by exercise training has been widely evaluated, the available literature on "passive deconditioning" (i.e. forced deconditioning) is predominately limited to studies with or with almost complete mechanical and/or metabolic immobilization/sedation of the respective functional system (e.g. paralysis, bedriddenness). Vice versa, the effects of moderately long interruptions of dedicated types of exercise while maintaining everyday activity are rarely addressed. However, this topic is of high relevance, e.g. considering that breaks of health-related exercise programs due to increased family/occupational stress, vacation or temporary orthopedic limitation are rather frequent in everyday life. In the present project we aimed to determine the effects of 3 months of physical deconditioning due to COVID-19 induced lockdown after 13 month of high intensity endurance and resistance exercise in early postmenopausal women on parameters related to health and physical fitness.

Enrollment: 21 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 48 to 60 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• (early)postmenopausal women, ( normal menopause, 1-5 years post)
• Osteopenia and osteoporosis (Bone Mineral Density <-1.0 SD T-Score)

Exclusion criteria

• BMD <-4.0 SD T-Score
• Prevalent clinical, low-trauma fractures
• Diseases and drugs with relevant effects on bone and muscle metabolism (e.g. glucocorticoids >7.5 mg/d or bisphosphonate therapy); individual case assessment
• Diseases and drugs with relevant effects on cardiometabolic risk factors (e.g. severe hypertension with corresponding medical therapy); individual case assessment
• Severe cardiovascular events (e.g. stroke, coronary infarction) in the past.
• Other conditions, diseases that exclude exercise training or testing

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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21 participants in 2 patient groups

HIT-exercise

Active Comparator group

Description:

13 months of high intensity endurance and resistance exercise - 3 months of exercise break

Treatment:

Other: HIT-exercise

control

Sham Comparator group

Description:

no exercise intervention that affect the present study outcomes

Treatment:

Other: Sham intervention