The effectiveness of yoga on menopausal symptoms: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Background

The highly prevalent menopausal symptoms among women, along with their deleterious health impacts, call for increased attention to the need for effective interventions targeting this growing public health problem. While increasing evidence demonstrates that yoga interventions benefit menopausal symptoms, no systematic review or meta-analysis has yet systematically examined the effectiveness of yoga on menopausal symptoms.

Objective

To systematically examine the effectiveness of Yoga in improving menopausal symptoms, hot flashes, depressive symptoms, anxiety, sleep quality, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and quality of life among women with menopause.

Design

Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Methods

Nine electronic databases, including PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, Science Direct, EMBASE, Cochrane Central, CINAHL, WanFang, and the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, were searched from their inception to March 3, 2024, and updated on August 1, 2024. Randomized controlled trials investigating Yoga interventions for women experiencing menopause were included in this study. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration's ‘risk of bias’ tool. Meta-analyses were conducted using RevMan 5.4.1 and Stata 18.0.

Results

A total of 1302 articles were initially identified. Eventually, 24 studies (n = 2028 individuals) were included in this systematic review. The pooled analysis demonstrated that Yoga had significant beneficial effects on total menopausal symptoms (95 % CI: − 1.62 to − 0.73), psychological menopausal symptoms (95 % CI: − 1.87 to − 0.68), somatic menopausal symptoms (95 % CI: − 1.37 to − 0.39), urogenital menopausal symptoms (95 % CI: − 0.97 to − 0.59), sleep quality (95 % CI: − 1.97 to − 0.62), anxiety (95 % CI: − 1.82 to − 0.09), depressive symptoms (95 % CI: − 2.36 to − 0.74), body mass index (95 % CI: − 1.61 to − 1.08), systolic blood pressure (95 % CI: − 7.71 to − 5.33), and diastolic blood pressure (95 % CI: − 5.96 to − 4.24). However, no significant differences were observed between Yoga and usual care in terms of hot flashes (95 % CI: − 1.00 to 0.37) and quality of life (95 % CI: − 0.50 to 1.82).

Conclusions

Yoga significantly improved menopausal symptoms, sleep quality, anxiety, depressive symptoms, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure among women with menopause. This suggests that integrating yoga interventions into clinical practice has the potential to address the significant burden of menopause-related outcomes. Future studies should employ robust designs and utilize large-scale samples to evaluate the optimal dosage of yoga, its long-term effects and underlying mechanisms, its cost-effectiveness, and its safety in menopausal symptom management.