Effect of Tai Chi on bone mineral density in postmenopausal women: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized control trials

BACKGROUND: This meta-analysis of relative randomized control trials (RCTs) aimed to investigate whether Tai Chi exercise is able to alleviate bone mineral density (BMD) loss in postmenopausal women. METHODS: Electronic databases including PubMed, Embase, Springer link, Cochrane library, Wanfang and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKIi) were used to search the eligible literature up to January 28, 2016. The pooled weighted mean difference (WMD) method combined with 95% confidence interval (CI) was used as the effect size of BMD values. The quality assessment of the included articles was performed by the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias Tool (CCRBT). RESULTS: Total of six eligible articles with 182 participants in the Tai Chi intervention group and 168 participants in the control group were included in this study. Compared with control group, the overall analysis with the fixed-effect model showed no significant difference in BMD at the lumber spine between the intervention and control groups (WMD = 0.02, 95% CI: -0.00 to 0.05, P = 0.09). Moreover, there was no obvious difference in BMD at the femoral neck between Tai Chi interventions and controls (WMD = 0.01, 95% CI = -0.03 to 0.05, P = 0.51) via the pooled analysis with the random effects model. CONCLUSION: Tai Chi exhibits no significant role in attenuating BMD loss in postmenopausal women at the lumber spine and femoral neck.