Abstract
Prevention and treatment of osteoporosis are an issue of great concern in public health so that the increase/maintenance of whole-body bone mineral density (BMD) is clinically relevant and could reduce the financial burden. Whole-body vibration (WBV) has been recently proposed as a potential alternative to bone stimulation, which combined with therapies, could provide a new treatment for osteoporosis prevention. In this sense, moderate cyclic hypoxia protocols may help to restrain osteoclastic activity and/or stimulate osteoblastic activity, enhance the effects of whole-body vibration alone. So, the present study investigated the effects of cyclic hypoxic exposure combined with WBV training on BMD of the elderly. Healthy elderly persons (n = 30) were randomly assigned to a (1) Hypoxia-Whole Body Vibration group (HWBV; n = 10), (2) Normoxic-Whole Body Vibration group (NWBV; n = 10) or (3) Control group (CON; n = 10). During 18 weeks, HWBV performed WBV treatment under normobaric hypoxic conditions (16.1% FiO2). A vibration session included 4 bouts of 30 s (12.6 Hz–4 mm) with 1 min rest between bouts. NWBV performed the same vibration treatment as HWBV but under normoxic conditions. Whole-body and proximal femur BMD (g⋅cm−2) were measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Two-way ANOVA indicated a borderline significant (p = 0.07) time x group interaction for total BMD; post hoc analysis revealed a slight but significant (p = 0.021) increase of BMD after treatment in the HWBV group. In conclusion, 18-week WBV training with hypoxic stimuli has shown positive effects for the participants of the current study. As changes did not differ significantly between groups, future large-scale studies will be necessary to confirm these findings.
Highlights
With increasing life expectancy, the growing proportion of elderly populations across the world has made osteoporosis an increasingly important public health issue (Verschueren et al, 2011)
The combining of Whole-body vibration (WBV) training and cyclic hypoxic exposure could augment the beneficial effects of WBV training, resolve the inconvenience of long training periods, and ensure that the bone benefits aren’t just localised. Considering all these findings, the present study investigated the effects of normobaric cyclic hypoxic exposure combined with WBV training on bone mineral density (BMD) of the elderly over an 18week period
The results indicate that the hypoxic stimulus combined with WBV training may cause an individualised response demonstrating effects in the proximal femur BMD after 18 weeks of treatment
Summary
The growing proportion of elderly populations across the world has made osteoporosis an increasingly important public health issue (Verschueren et al, 2011). Whole-body vibration (WBV) training may represent an alternative to current methods to fight bone disorders and to reduce the risk of impact injuries (Mikhael et al, 2010) This type of activity, which can be generated with different platforms (vertical, rotational or lateral modes) (McMillan et al, 2017) generates forces that are transferred to the weight-bearing bones of the skeleton as done by other exercise modalities (Cheung and Giangregorio, 2012). Some studies have included protocols with frequencies at 10–15 Hz to allow for gentle adaptation in frail populations (elderly or rehabilitation programs, etc.) (Gusi et al, 2006; Turner et al, 2011; von Stengel et al, 2011) These investigations reported a clinically relevant effect in bone loss prevention at the femoral neck and lumbar spine. The combination of effects of WBV training with other therapies could provide a new mode of osteoporosis prevention and treatment
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