Menopause is the permanent cessation of menstruation due to the loss of ovarian follicular function and estrogen reduction, with an average age of 51 years. Estrogen has beneficial effects on many body systems including cardiovascular, bone and brain. And its reduction, in addition to causing various clinical manifestations such as hot flashes, mood disorders, headaches and sleep disorders, reducing the quality of life, can lead to a decrease in bone density (osteoporosis) and muscle, an increase in fat mass, a decrease in fat-free mass, and Obesity, type 2 diabetes, increased inflammation And most importantly, it leads to an increase in the risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and accounts for 50% of the deaths of women over 50 years old.
Exercise Training can be useful and effective as a non-drug way to reduce the complications of menopause. Blood flow restriction (BFR) is a new form of exercise Training that produces more physiological adaptations than resistance training with less intensity and time (usually 20 minutes). In this type of exercise, the member is tied from the upper part using a kaatsu device or an elastic band and it is subjected to very light exercise Training. This action causes the formation of a temporary blood pool in the organ and because of that, the accumulation of metabolic substances increases. which causes the emergence of many mechanisms related to BFR exercise Training. The purpose of this study is to investigate the most important mechanisms of menopausal symptom improvement following resistance exercise training with blood flow restriction in the last 5 years.
In this systematic review, Google scholar, PubMed, Scopus search engines were used with the keywords menopause, menopausal women, blood flow restriction exercise in English.
The results of previous research show that BFR exercises in postmenopausal women cause several beneficial adaptations, such as: increase in protein production through the increase of IGF-1 and akt-PI3K-MTOR signaling pathway, increase in muscle endurance. On the other hand, the hypoxia caused by these exercises increases capillary formation and as a result increases the local endurance of muscles, nitric oxide synthesis and decreases myostatin, and by increasing fibroblast growth factor 2 (2FGF), they are effective in improving cardiovascular risk factors. These exercises also cause bone formation and resorption, increasing bone mineral density (BMD) and bone turnover markers (BTMs). In addition to improvement in vasomotor symptoms, mental-psychological symptoms (depression, anxiety, stress, quality of life, sleep disorders) also cause improvement in concentration, learning and memory.