Hypoxic Pilates Intervention for Obesity: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

This study examined the effect of Pilates training under hypoxia, a novel treatment method, for obesity. Thirty-two Korean women with obesity (age: 34–60 (47.5 ± 7.5) years) were randomly assigned to control (CON; n = 10), normoxic Pilates training (NPTG; n = 10), and hypoxic Pilates training groups (HPTG; n = 12). The NPTG and HPTG performed 50 min of Pilates training using a tubing band for 12 weeks (3 days/week) in their respective environmental conditions (NPTG: normoxic condition, inspired oxygen fraction (FiO2) = 20.9%; HPTG: moderate hypoxic condition, FiO2 = 14.5%). The CON maintained their daily lifestyle without intervention. All subjects underwent body composition, blood pressure, arterial stiffness, vascular endothelial function, cardiometabolic biomarker, hemorheological function, and aerobic performance measurements before and after the intervention. The HPTG showed a significant improvement in diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations, flow-mediated dilation, and erythrocyte deformability and aggregation (all p < 0.05) compared with the CON and NPTG. However, compared with the CON and NPTG, the HPTG did not show improvement in other parameters. Hypoxic Pilates intervention is a novel and successful method for promoting endothelial and hemorheological functions in women with obesity.

Pilates for Overweight or Obesity: A Meta-Analysis

“…Then we initially screened out 2,502 articles through title and abstract, and the remaining 60 were considered highly relevant. Finally, we further excluded 49 studies by means of reading full text according to our study selection criteria, leaving 11 studies (Cakmakçi, 2011 ; Gorji et al, 2014 , 2015 ; Chaudhary, 2016 ; Savkin and Aslan, 2016 ; Khormizi and Azarniveh, 2017 ; Khajehlandi et al, 2018 ; Chen J. et al, 2020 ; Jung et al, 2020 ; Tyagi and Kumar, 2020 ; Wong et al, 2020 ) for inclusion in this analysis ( Figure 1 ).…”

“…All included studies were RCTs involving 393 adults with overweight or obesity. The studies were from Korea (Jung et al, 2020 ), Turkey (Cakmakçi, 2011 ; Savkin and Aslan, 2016 ), Iran (Gorji et al, 2014 , 2015 ; Khormizi and Azarniveh, 2017 ; Khajehlandi et al, 2018 ), the USA (Wong et al, 2020 ), India (Chaudhary, 2016 ; Tyagi and Kumar, 2020 ), and China (Chen J. et al, 2020 ). These studies were published between 2011 and 2020, and the intervention duration varied from 8 to 24 weeks, with the sample size ranging from 20 to 61 participants.…”

“…The participants were mostly female (77.1%). Nine studies (81.8%) only recruited women (Cakmakçi, 2011 ; Gorji et al, 2014 , 2015 ; Savkin and Aslan, 2016 ; Khormizi and Azarniveh, 2017 ; Khajehlandi et al, 2018 ; Chen J. et al, 2020 ; Jung et al, 2020 ; Wong et al, 2020 ), and another two (18.2%) only recruited men (Chaudhary, 2016 ; Tyagi and Kumar, 2020 ). In terms of the definition of overweight and obesity, all 11 studies used BMI.…”

“…Three studies recruited participants with hypertension (Wong et al, 2020 ), type 2 diabetes (Khormizi and Azarniveh, 2017 ), and depression (Chen J. et al, 2020 ), other studies recruited participants with no reported existing medical conditions. Regarding the measurement method of body composition, four studies (Gorji et al, 2014 , 2015 ; Savkin and Aslan, 2016 ; Wong et al, 2020 ) used bioelectric impedance analysis device, three studies (Chaudhary, 2016 ; Khajehlandi et al, 2018 ; Tyagi and Kumar, 2020 ) used body composition analyzer, one study (Jung et al, 2020 ) used a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scanner, two studies (Cakmakçi, 2011 ; Chen J. et al, 2020 ) did not specify, and the remaining one (Khormizi and Azarniveh, 2017 ) did not measure. The characteristics of the included studies are summarized in Table 1 .…”

“…While the overall effects of physical exercises on body weight in people with overweight or obesity are now well-known, Pilates is not. Despite several studies have been conducted to assess the physical effects of Pilates for individuals with overweight or obesity, the results have been diverse with no clear consensus (Hagner-Derengowska et al, 2015 ; Rayes et al, 2019 ; Jung et al, 2020 ). Additionally, there is no systematic review or meta-analysis on Pilates for treating overweight and obesity to date.…”