Effect of Massage with Warming Stone on Abdominal Obesity in Middle Aged Woman

Abstract

Abdominal obesity, especially in middle-aged women, is closely associated with cardiovascular and metabolic disease. A lot of treatments including exercise and massage have been used to reduce abdominal obesity. Recently, massage with warming stone were frequently used for abdominal obesity in practice. However, there is no scientific evidence on the effect of massage with warming stone on abdominal obesity. Therefore, we investigated the effect of massage with warming stone on abdominal obesity in middle-aged women. Ten women (mean age 44.40±3.56 years, BMI 27.67±2.81 kg/m, WHR 0.92±0.04 ratio) without any health problem were recruited. All subjects were treated by massage with warming stone for 40 min once a day, twice a week, during 8 weeks. Data including height, weight, body mass index (BMI), % body fat (%BF), obesity index (OI), waist circumference (WC), waist to hip ratio (WHR), % abdominal fat (%AF), and thickness of abdominal subcutaneous fat (TAF) were measured at before treatment (PRE), 4 weeks (4 wks), and 8 weeks (8 wks) after treatment. Also, blood content such as total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLC), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) were measured at PRE and 8 wks after treatment. The present results showed that most data such as weight, BMI, OI, WC1-3, WHR, %AF, and TAF were significantly decreased at 4 wks and 8 wks compared to the PRE (p⁄.05), while there were no statistical differences in %BF, TC, TG, HDL-C, and LDL-C between PRE and 8 wks. Related to the measurement site of WC, the biggest decrease of WC was observed in WC1 (4.7 cm) while the lowest decrease was observed in WC3 (2.74 cm). In summary, the findings of our study provide the evidence that massage with warming stone for 4 week reduced the risk of abdominal obesity in middle age woman by decreasing abdominal obese factors such as weight, BMI, OI, WC, WHR %AF, and TAF. Therefore, it can be suggested that massage with warming stone may be effective method for reducing abdominal obesity in middle age woman.