Moderate Intensity Intermittent Walking in Postmenopausal Women

Liver Function and Inflammation in Obese Postmenopausal Women: Responses to Moderate Intensity Intermittent Walking

The goal of this clinical trial is to investigate the impact of a walking training intervention program on liver enzymes and selected inflammatory markers in postmenopausal women with obesity. The main question it aims to answer is:

Does walking training reduce the risk of liver disease by modulating hepatic-enzymes and selected inflammatory markers? Researchers will compare walking training intervention (designed to the experimental group) to non-training intervention (designed to the control group) to see if the training program works to improve liver health in obese postmenopausal women.

Participants in the experimental (training) group will: underwent a moderate intensity intermittent walking training (MIWT) at 60% to 80% of the 6-min-walking-test distance, four times a week of 60 min/session.

Participants in control group will : not perform any physical training and maintain their usual daily activities.

Postmenopausal obesity is an important public health problem accompanied by increased systemic inflammation that escalates the risk of liver disease. Exercise improved inflammatory and hepatic function. Moderate-intensity intermittent-walking-training (MIWT) is the most feasible for obese-postmenopausal-women. This study aimed to investigate whether MIWT could reduce the risk by modulating hepatic-enzymes and selected inflammatory markers. Thirty-six sedentary obese postmenopausal women (mean age 55.7±3.5) were randomly divided into two groups: training group (TG, n=18) and control group (CG, n=18). The TG underwent a MIWT at 60% to 80% of the 6-min-walking-test distance, four times a week of 60 min/session. Body composition, hepatic (alanine-transaminase (ALT), aspartate-transaminase (AST), alkaline-phosphatase, gamma-glutamyl-transferase (GGT) and serum-bilirubin] and inflammatory markers [C-reactive-protein (CRP), and erythrocyte-sedimentation-rate (ESR)) were evaluated at baseline and after 10-week of protocol.

Inclusion Criteria:

Women included are:

• Postmenopausal (≥1 year of amenorrhea).
• Obese (body mass index (BMI) ≥30 kg/m2).
• Sedentary (<120 min/week of low to moderate intensity physical activity at during the past 6 months).
• Aged 50 to 60 years.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Suffering from any cardiovascular/renal/pulmonary/metabolic disease.
• Being under menopausal hormone therapy.
• Presenting any orthopedic limitations interfering the ability to perform the study intervention.