The effect of diet and exercise on climacteric symptomatology

Abstract

Background and objectives: This study aimed to explore the effects of health education, diet and exercise interventions on the climacteric symptoms of perimenopausal women.

Methods and study design: A total of 78 perimenopausal women in a gynaecological clinic from June 2018 to August 2018 were recruited and divided randomly into the following three groups: A (centralised education alone), B (health education + per-sonalised diet guidance) and C (health education + personalised diet guidance + intensive resistance exercise). The changes in diet score, exercise habits and climacteric symptoms were observed after 3 months.

Results: There was no difference between groups in food intake scores and total scores before the interventions. After the interventions, the total diet score of group C was higher than in groups A and B, and the red meat score decreased significantly (p<0.05). After the interventions, the number of resistance exercises per week in group B increased significantly. The number of aerobic exercises and resistance exercises per week in group C also increased significantly (p<0.05). The total score for climacteric symptoms in the three groups decreased significantly before and after the interventions (p<0.05), and the scores for insomnia and sexual disorders in group A decreased significantly (p<0.01). In group B, there was a significant effect on the improvement of moderate and severe climacteric symptoms (p<0.01), and the scores for seven other common symptoms (i.e. hot flushes, sweating, irritability, depression, suspicion, fatigue, joint pain, muscle pain, palpitations and sexual disorders) decreased significantly (p<0.05).

Conclusions: Centralised health education, personalised dietary guidance and intensive resistance exercise improved the menopausal symptoms experienced by peri-menopausal women; the most indicative changes of this improvement were obtained using combined health education and personalised dietary guidance.