Effects of Whole-Body Vibration Training Combined With Cyclic Hypoxia on Bone Mineral Density in Elderly People

Prevention and treatment of osteoporosis are an issue of great concern in public health so that the increase/maintenance of whole-body bone mineral density (BMD) is clinically relevant and could reduce the financial burden. Whole-body vibration (WBV) has been recently proposed as a potential alternative to bone stimulation, which combined with therapies, could provide a new treatment for osteoporosis prevention. In this sense, moderate cyclic hypoxia protocols may help to restrain osteoclastic activity and/or stimulate osteoblastic activity, enhance the effects of whole-body vibration alone. So, the present study investigated the effects of cyclic hypoxic exposure combined with WBV training on BMD of the elderly. Healthy elderly persons (n = 30) were randomly assigned to a (1) Hypoxia-Whole Body Vibration group (HWBV; n = 10), (2) Normoxic-Whole Body Vibration group (NWBV; n = 10) or (3) Control group (CON; n = 10). During 18 weeks, HWBV performed WBV treatment under normobaric hypoxic conditions (16.1% FiO(2)). A vibration session included 4 bouts of 30 s (12.6 Hz–4 mm) with 1 min rest between bouts. NWBV performed the same vibration treatment as HWBV but under normoxic conditions. Whole-body and proximal femur BMD (g⋅cm(−2)) were measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Two-way ANOVA indicated a borderline significant (p = 0.07) time x group interaction for total BMD; post hoc analysis revealed a slight but significant (p = 0.021) increase of BMD after treatment in the HWBV group. In conclusion, 18-week WBV training with hypoxic stimuli has shown positive effects for the participants of the current study. As changes did not differ significantly between groups, future large-scale studies will be necessary to confirm these findings.