Exercise, Lipids, and Lipoproteins in Older Adults: A Meta‐Analysis

The authors used the meta‐analytic approach to examine the effects of aerobic exercise on lipids and lipoproteins in adults 50 years of age and older. Twenty‐eight outcomes representing 1427 subjects (806 exercise, 621 control) were available for pooling. Random‐effects modeling yielded statistically significant improvements of 1.1%, 5.6%, 2.5%, and 7.1%, respectively, for total cholesterol (mean ± SEM in mg/dL, −3.3±1.7; 95% confidence interval [CI], −6.5 to −0.02; p=0.05), high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (2.5±1.0; 95% CI, 0.7–4.4; p=0.01), low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (−3.9±1.9; 95% CI, −7.7 to −0.08; p=0.05), ratio of total cholesterol to high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (−0.8±0.2; 95% CI, −1.2 to −0.4; p<0.001), but not triglycerides (−7.0±3.6; 95% CI, −14.0 to 0.1; p=0.06). After conducting sensitivity analyses, only the improvements in high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol and the ratio of total cholesterol to high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol remained statistically significant (p<0.05 for both). It was concluded that aerobic exercise increases high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol and decreases the ratio of total cholesterol to high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol in older adults.