Cycling and bone health: a systematic review

BMC Medicine

Research Article

Hugo Olmedillas¹  José A Casajus¹  Alejandro González-Agüero¹  Germán Vicente-Rodríguez¹  Luis A Moreno² 

[1] GENUD 'Growth, Exercise, NUtrition and Development' Research Group, Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain;Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences (FCSD), Department of Physiatry and Nursing, Universidad de Zaragoza, Huesca, Spain;GENUD 'Growth, Exercise, NUtrition and Development' Research Group, Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain;School of Health Science (EUCS), Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain;

关键词: cyclists;    osteopenia;    osteoporosis;    sport;    training;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1741-7015-10-168

 received in 2012-05-07, accepted in 2012-12-20,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundCycling is considered to be a highly beneficial sport for significantly enhancing cardiovascular fitness in individuals, yet studies show little or no corresponding improvements in bone mass.MethodsA scientific literature search on studies discussing bone mass and bone metabolism in cyclists was performed to collect all relevant published material up to April 2012. Descriptive, cross-sectional, longitudinal and interventional studies were all reviewed. Inclusion criteria were met by 31 studies.ResultsHeterogeneous studies in terms of gender, age, data source, group of comparison, cycling level or modality practiced among others factors showed minor but important differences in results. Despite some controversial results, it has been observed that adult road cyclists participating in regular training have low bone mineral density in key regions (for example, lumbar spine). Conversely, other types of cycling (such as mountain biking), or combination with other sports could reduce this unsafe effect. These results cannot yet be explained by differences in dietary patterns or endocrine factors.ConclusionsFrom our comprehensive survey of the current available literature it can be concluded that road cycling does not appear to confer any significant osteogenic benefit. The cause of this may be related to spending long hours in a weight-supported position on the bike in combination with the necessary enforced recovery time that involves a large amount of time sitting or lying supine, especially at the competitive level.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Olmedillas et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.