The Effects of Different Exercise Training Types on Body Composition and Physical Performance in Older Adults with Sarcopenic Obesity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

OBJECTIVES: To carry out a systematic review and meta-analysis to verify the effects of different exercise training types on body composition and physical performance in older adults with sarcopenic obesity (SO). DESIGN: Systematic review and meta-analysis. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Older adults (≥60 years). METHODS: Database searches were performed in MEDLINE (via PubMed), EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, SCOPUS, and LILACS on January 10th, 2023. We included: randomized and/or controlled clinical trials; physical exercise as an intervention; analysis of body composition and/or muscle function; and sarcopenic obesity diagnosis. We used the Risk of Bias 2 tool and PEDro scale. The GRADE certainty of evidence was also performed. RESULTS: Fourteen studies were included in the systematic review and nine studies in the meta-analysis. A decrease in body fat (%) favoring the exercise group was identified (SMD: -0.34 [95% CI: -0.53 to -0.16]; p=0.0003) (GRADE: ⊕⊕⊕◯ Moderate). Only resistance training showed fat reduction (SMD: -0.27 [95% CI: -0.48 to -0.06]; p=0.01). Increases in upper (SMD: 0.41 [95% CI: 0.04 to 0.78]; p=0.03) (GRADE: ⊕⊕◯◯ Low) and lower (SMD: 0.80 [95% CI: 0.22 to 1.39]; p=0.007) (GRADE: ⊕⊕⊕⊕ High) limb strength was identified with exercise. Chair stand test showed increases with exercise (SMD: 0.73 [95% CI: 0.40 to 1.07]; p<0.0001) (GRADE: ⊕⊕⊕⊕ High), especially for resistance training (SMD: 0.62 [95% CI: 0.21 to 1.02]; p=0.003) and combined training (SMD: 0.99 [95% CI: 0.40 to 1.57]; p=0.0005). The PEDro scale for the studies in our review ranged from 3 to 8 (mean = 5.8 (1.6)), meaning fair methodological quality, and most studies were overall judged with at least low/some concerns in terms of risk of bias. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Overall, moderate to high certainty of evidence was found for body fat, lower limb strength, and chair stand test. On the other hand, low certainty of evidence was found for upper limb strength. Resistance, combined, and aerobic training evoked divergent results between the variables analyzed. Although promising, our results should be considered sparingly, but may guide additional exercise recommendations to improve specific health parameters in older adults with SO.

Uphill running excessive training increases gastrocnemius glycogen content in C57BL/6 mice.

The main aim of the present investigation was to verify the effects of three overtraining (OT) protocols performed in downhill (OTR/down), uphill (OTR/up) and without inclination (OTR) on the protein levels of Akt (Ser473), AMPKalpha (Thr172), PGC-1alpha, plasma membrane GLUT-1 and GLUT-4 as well as on the glycogen contents in mice gastrocnemius. A trained (TR) protocol was used as positive control. Rodents were divided into naive (N, sedentary mice), control (CT, sedentary mice submitted to the performance evaluations), TR, OTR/down, OTR/up and OTR groups. At the end of the experimental protocols, gastrocnemius samples were removed and used for immunoblotting analysis as well as for glycogen measurements. There was no significant difference between the experimental groups for the protein levels of pAkt (Ser473), pAMPKalpha (Thr172), PGC-1alpha, plasma membrane GLUT-1 and GLUT-4. However, the OTR/up protocol exhibited higher contents of glycogen compared to the CT and TR groups. In summary, the OTR/up group increased the gastrocnemius glycogen content without significant changes of pAkt (Ser473), pAMPKalpha (Thr172), PGC-1alpha, plasma membrane GLUT-1 and GLUT-4.

Nonfunctional overreaching leads to inflammation and myostatin upregulation in swiss mice.

The aims of the this study were a) to verify whether the performance decrease induced by nonfunctional overreaching (NFOR) is linked to high concentrations of cytokines in serum, skeletal muscles and liver; b) to verify muscle myostatin adaptation to NFOR; c) to verify the effects of chronic glucose supplementation on the parameters mentioned above. Mice were divided into control (C), trained (TR), overtrained (OTR) and supplemented overtrained (OTR + S). The incremental load test (ILT) and exhaustive test (ET) were used to measure performances before and after exercise protocols. 24 h after ET, muscles and liver were removed and stored at -80°C for subsequent measurements. Total blood was collected from decapitation for subsequent determination of cytokine concentrations. Generally, OTR and OTR + S presented higher contents of IL-6, TNF-alpha, GLUT-4 and myostatin in muscle samples compared to C and TR. Glucose supplementation attenuated the high contents of IL-6, TNF-alpha and IL-15 in liver, and of IL-6 in serum. In summary, NFOR led to low-grade chronic inflammation and myostatin upregulation.