The Caffeine Supplementation in a Moderate-Intensity Aerobic Exercise in Obese Asian Women

Abstract

While the role of exercise in managing obesity has been suggested, little is known about the effect of caffeine supplementation in the exercise program on body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage (%BF), and cholesterol. This research compared the effect of aerobic exercise with and without caffeine on BMI, %BF, and cholesterol level in obese Asian women. Twenty-seven participants were randomly allocated into three groups, which were an aerobic exercise without caffeine (A; n = 9), an aerobic exercise with 3 mg/body weight—caffeine (AC; n = 9), and a control group (C; n = 9). The exercise was a 45-min exercise training at 60%–75% maximum heart rate conducted three times weekly for 8 weeks. The mixed-method repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to assess the effect of treatments and time (i.e., pretest and posttest) on the outcome measures, followed by simple effect analyses with Bonferroni correction. While there was a significant improvement in BMI and %BF from the pretest to posttest, this was superseded by a time-by-treatment interaction effect. For the time-by-treatment interaction, the cholesterol levels in the A and AC groups were significantly lower than in C, suggesting that the benefit of the exercise program is most evident in controlling cholesterol. In conclusion, the 3 mg/kg body weight caffeine does not appear to provide additional benefit in the 8-week moderate-intensity aerobic exercise session in improving BMI, %BF, and cholesterol among obese Asian women. Further research with higher caffeine dosage and larger and more heterogenous sample sizes is recommended to confirm the findings.