Lifestyle exercises for bone health and health-related quality of life among premenopausal women: A controlled trial.

Particularly among the premenopausal age group, promotion of bone-health enhancing exercises (a prerequisite for optimal bone health across the lifespan) presents with unprecedented challenges. As a deviation from traditional, facility-based, supervised, long duration exercise regimes, the efficacy of brief, bouts of lifestyle exercises for improving bone health and quality of life was examined. Methods: Premenopausal women (n= 96, mean age: 22.25 ± 3.5 years; mean BMI: 23.43±3.5 kg/m2) participated in a six-month randomised controlled trial of lifestyle osteogenic exercises for the intervention group and lifestyle (non-osteogenic) exercises for the control group. The outcome measure SF SF-36 was accessed pre- and post-intervention. Participants’ scores were calculated according to the SF-36 scoring manual and compared with population norms for each health domain. Paired t tests were used to examine changes within trial arms from baseline to post-intervention while ANCOVA was performed to examine the effect of the lifestyle exercise programme on quality of life of premenopausal women. Results: Post-intervention, 63% of the participants (compared to 59% at baseline) were either at or above the general population norm for general health. Similarly, the percentage of participants who were below population health norm for mental health reduced from 45% at baseline to 40% post exercise intervention. Comparable improvements in QOL were found in both trial arms post participation in the bone health promotion programme. Conclusions: Osteogenic exercises, when implemented as easily adoptable lifestyle physical activity, may also enhance QOL of premenopausal women. Hence, a practical lifestyle approach to exercise may proffer a much needed public health strategy for bone health promotion among women.