Study archive · page 36

Pooling 29 randomised trials in 1,383 people aged 6-45 with overweight or obesity, combining resistance with aerobic training beat aerobic exercise alone for lean body mass and insulin-resistance markers. Body weight, BMI, body fat percentage, waist circumference, blood pressure and lipids showed no consistent difference.

⚠What it shows: Meta-analysis of 29 randomised trials (n=1,383) in people aged 6-45 with overweight or obesity; several outcomes rested on few studies with low-to-very-low certainty evidence, secondary analyses are exploratory, and the age range spans children to middle-aged adults.Study · iScience

Pooling eight randomised trials, movement retraining substantially reduced peak vertical ground reaction force during landing, a modifiable biomechanical risk marker for ACL injury. No included trial measured actual injury rates, so whether softer landings mean fewer torn ligaments remains unknown.

⚠What it shows: Meta-analysis of nine comparisons from eight randomised trials with only 292 participants in total; certainty of evidence was rated low with substantial heterogeneity (I2 = 63%), the subgroup difference rests on just three general-athletic comparisons, and the outcome is a surrogate marker rather than injury incidence.Review · J Funct Morphol Kinesiol

In 30 office workers with chronic neck pain, eight weeks of supervised Pilates improved pain, disability, cervical range of motion, neck muscle strength and core endurance. Adding kinesiotaping to the same programme gave no extra benefit for pain or disability, and only improved left cervical rotation.

⚠What it shows: Small randomised controlled trial with only 30 office workers completing (16 Pilates, 14 Pilates plus taping), no no-exercise control group, short 8-week follow-up and no blinding of the taping; the authors themselves call for larger studies.RCT · Pain Res Manag

Ten weeks of French contrast training beat equal-load traditional training for jump height, reactive strength, 10-metre sprint and change-of-direction performance in 25 female collegiate basketball players. Maximal strength was the exception: both groups added to their back squat one-rep max, with no advantage to either method.

⚠What it shows: Single randomised controlled trial, 25 female collegiate basketball players split into groups of 13 and 12, 10 weeks. Small groups, one sport, trained young women only: findings may not transfer to other populations or to untrained people.Study · Front Physiol

Pooling 15 randomised trials in 244 people, lower-limb blood flow restriction work produced a moderate boost in subsequent explosive performance (SMD 0.55), with the largest effects from multi-joint lifts, rest longer than 4 minutes and cuff pressures of 40-60% of arterial occlusion. It also made the effort feel significantly harder (SMD 0.82 for perceived exertion).

⚠What it shows: Meta-analysis of 15 RCTs totalling 244 participants aged 17-35, so young and mostly trained. Heterogeneity was high for the main outcome (I² = 78%) and several subgroups rested on only 1-2 studies, which the authors say should be read with extreme caution.Systematic review · Front Physiol

Eight weeks of dynamic neuromuscular stability exercises, three sessions a week, improved balance and lower-limb strength in older men: the trained group gained 3.79 points on the Berg Balance Scale, 1.77 extra repetitions on the Chair Stand Test and cut 0.87 seconds from the Timed Up and Go, versus a group doing nothing.

⚠What it shows: A small randomised controlled trial in 30 men aged 61-76 in Iran, with a no-intervention control group rather than an active comparator, so attention and general activity effects cannot be ruled out. Single site, short duration, men only.Study · J Aging Res

In an 8-week randomised trial, resistance-trained men taking 30 g/day whey protein plus 10 g/day collagen gained more muscle mass, lumbar spine bone density and strength than whey alone, collagen alone or placebo.

⚠What it shows: Small double-blind RCT: 40 resistance-trained men across four groups, so about 10 per arm, over only 8 weeks; muscle mass came from bioelectrical impedance rather than a criterion method, and the reported gains, including the spine bone density change, are unusually large and unusually consistent for such a short trial, so independent replication matters.Study · BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil

Pooling 20 randomised trials in 2,445 adults with metabolic syndrome or related conditions, supplements from the mint and sage family produced modest reductions in BMI, weight, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio. Directly measured body fat mass did not change significantly.

⚠What it shows: Meta-analysis of 20 RCTs (n=2,445) in adults with metabolic syndrome, obesity, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidaemia or fatty liver; half the trials had unclear allocation concealment, 10% had high performance bias risk, trials were short, body fat was measured indirectly, and the genus-level signals for Salvia and Zataria came from few trials.Review · J Ethnopharmacol

A meta-analysis of 20 randomised trials in women found acute caffeine gave a small average performance boost (Hedges' g = 0.37), with positive estimates in every menstrual-cycle phase and in contraceptive users, and no clear evidence that phase changes the effect. Certainty was low to very low.

⚠What it shows: Systematic review and meta-analysis of 20 randomised trials with 144 effect sizes in women; risk-of-bias concerns, sparse subgroup data, inconsistent verification of menstrual phase and low-to-very-low GRADE certainty mean subgroup conclusions are hypothesis-generating only.Systematic review · Front Nutr

Across 13 randomised placebo-controlled trials in rugby players, acute caffeine produced small improvements in sprint performance and lower perceived exertion, plus a large but highly heterogeneous effect on passing accuracy. Jumping, strength, metabolic and hormonal markers showed no significant change.

⚠What it shows: Systematic review and meta-analysis of 15 studies (13 in the pooled analysis) in rugby players, but GRADE certainty was low to very low, and the passing-accuracy result showed high heterogeneity and possible small-study effects.Systematic review · Front Nutr

In the 573-person clinic subcohort of the COSMOS trial, a daily multivitamin-mineral supplement produced a more favourable two-year change in episodic memory than placebo (0.12 SD units) but no clear benefit for executive function or attention. Pooling three COSMOS cognitive substudies, the multivitamin improved global cognition by 0.07 SD units, an effect the authors equate to reducing cognitive ageing by 2 years.

⚠What it shows: Meta-analysis of three cognitive substudies (n=573, 2158 and 2472) nested within the single COSMOS trial of adults aged 60 and over, so it is not independent replication; effects were small in size, tests differed between substudies, and no effect was seen on executive function or attention in the clinic subcohort.Meta-analysis · Am J Clin Nutr

Endurance-trained men who took a ketone monoester with caffeine before 90 minutes of loaded treadmill work in 34 °C heat lasted longer in a subsequent time-to-exhaustion test than on carbohydrate, and scored better on the easier working-memory task. Harder cognitive tests, heart rate and core temperature were unchanged.

⚠What it shows: One randomised double-blind crossover trial in 17 endurance-trained young men with high VO2max; benefits appeared on some cognitive measures but not others, and the time-to-exhaustion difference was under two minutes on a short high-intensity test.RCT · J Int Soc Sports Nutr

In 50 obese women, 12 weeks of inulin-enriched tapioca pearls produced significant reductions in body weight, BMI, body fat mass, visceral fat, total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol compared with placebo pearls. The abstract reports the direction of change but not the size of it.

⚠What it shows: One randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 50 women aged 20-50 with BMI at or above 27 or waist over 80 cm, run for 12 weeks; small, single-site, women only, and the abstract gives no effect sizes, so the reductions could be modest. One author is affiliated with the company behind the product. Needs larger and independent replication.RCT · J Food Drug Anal

Pooling seven randomised trials in adults aged 60 and over, adding protein or amino acids at breakfast did not improve lean mass, grip strength or lower-limb strength. The evidence was judged very uncertain, and in trials without exercise the extra morning protein was linked to slightly lower total daily energy intake.

⚠What it shows: Systematic review and meta-analysis of only 7 RCTs totalling 305 older adults; the authors rate certainty as very low, effect estimates all crossed zero, and they call for further high-quality trials.Review · Food Sci Nutr

Machine-learning models classified whether serum miR-210 was raised after exercise training with 90% accuracy, but the entire study was 10 young adults, five per outcome group. Correlations between miR-210 and training frequency or age were weak and non-significant.

⚠What it shows: Exploratory study in just 10 young adults with five people per group, using leave-one-out cross-validation on a tiny sample: accuracy figures from samples this small are highly unstable, and the authors call the work hypothesis-generating.Study · Comb Chem High Throughput Screen

A proteome-wide Mendelian randomisation study reports that genetically predicted branched-chain amino acid levels track with 40 circulating proteins, six of which, including PCSK9, SHBG and coagulation factor II, appear to partly mediate the link between BCAAs and ischaemic heart disease, accounting for 6.5% to 32.1% of the association. The pathways implicated involve inflammation, coagulation, lipid metabolism and cellular stress.

⚠What it shows: Genetic (Mendelian randomisation) analysis of existing large datasets, not a feeding trial: it uses genetic proxies for BCAA levels, not measured dietary BCAA or supplement intake, and mediation estimates rest on modelling assumptions. Findings are mechanistic hypotheses needing experimental confirmation.Study · J Nutr

Among 442 users of a smart ring, the device's "cardio age" estimate correlated with sleep efficiency, REM sleep, sleep duration and daily steps, measures not fed into the algorithm, and 82.6% of users were rated younger than their actual age. All the authors work for the company selling the feature.

⚠What it shows: Retrospective observational analysis of 442 self-selected ring owners over 12 months, run entirely by employees of the company that sells the feature; correlations were weak (around r = -0.2) and no laboratory fitness comparison was reported.Study · Front Digit Health

A meta-analysis of twelve stretching studies found that 4-12 week stretching programmes produced a large reduction in pulse wave velocity, a measure of arterial stiffness (SMD -1.02), while a single stretching session produced only a small, non-significant change. Repeating each stretch three or more times was linked to the biggest benefit.

⚠What it shows: Systematic review pooling just six acute and six longitudinal studies in adults, with wide confidence intervals (longitudinal SMD -1.02, 95% CI -1.79 to -0.25). The authors treat it as a basis for designing a proper efficacy trial, not proof that stretching lowers cardiovascular disease risk.Systematic review · Sports Med

In a three-arm trial of 122 adults with probable depression, an 8-week multicomponent lifestyle programme delivered either by smartphone app or by booklet cut depressive symptoms more than a waitlist, with clinically significant improvement in 78% of the app group and 55% of the booklet group versus 19.5% of controls.

⚠What it shows: Single randomised trial of 122 adults with probable depression in Hong Kong, compared against a waitlist rather than an active treatment, with follow-up beyond week 9 collected only in the intervention groups.Study · J Affect Disord

Community-dwelling adults aged 55 and over who played a home-based digital mahjong game twice weekly for six months improved slightly more on delayed recall than a no-intervention control group, with a between-group difference of 0.79 points on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. Diastolic blood pressure also fell 3.50 mm Hg more in the game group, and brain imaging showed increased regional activity coherence in the right insula.

⚠What it shows: Single-blind randomised trial of 60 community-dwelling adults in Taipei, 30 per group, analysed per protocol, with no active control: the comparison group did nothing at all, so attention, novelty and the bundled walking incentive cannot be separated from the game itself. Cognitive gain was under one point on a screening test.RCT · JMIR Aging

Pooling 22 randomised trials, a single cold-water immersion after exercise did nothing for maximal isometric strength recovery and transiently blunted jump performance immediately afterwards, while its apparent benefit for muscle-damage markers vanished once publication bias was accounted for. The one reasonably consistent effect was lower reported soreness.

⚠What it shows: Systematic review and meta-analysis of 22 RCTs in healthy people comparing one cold-water immersion bout with passive rest; certainty was moderate at best for strength and very low for soreness, with substantial heterogeneity and publication bias affecting the creatine kinase result.Meta-analysis · PeerJ

In a Finnish twin cohort followed for a mean 17.5 years, a genetic score for longer lifespan was associated with modestly lower all-cause mortality, largely independent of lifestyle. Smoking 20 or more cigarettes a day and female sex were both stronger predictors than the genetic score.

⚠What it shows: Observational prospective cohort of 5,575 older Finnish twins (mean age 57.4) with 1,405 deaths; associations only, self-reported lifestyle factors, and findings in one national population may not generalise.Study · Geroscience

An umbrella review of 78 meta-analyses covering 177 373 participants found app-based interventions improved blood pressure, HbA1c, fasting and post-meal glucose, bodyweight, waist circumference, physical activity, diet quality, mood and medication adherence versus controls. There was no significant effect on cardiovascular mortality, cholesterol or triglycerides, body fat, hospitalisation or smoking abstinence.

⚠What it shows: An umbrella review of existing reviews, so quality is inherited: only 1% of the 78 included reviews was rated high quality and 73% critically low, heterogeneity was very high for most outcomes, and several authors are employed by a food company.Study · Lancet Digit Health

In a microbiome analysis of adults with mild-to-moderate Crohn's disease on the Crohn's disease exclusion diet, those who sustained remission at both weeks 12 and 24 had a distinct gut profile at baseline, lower alpha diversity and more Alistipes and Faecalibacterium, while Haemophilus and Prevotella were negatively linked to remission.

⚠What it shows: Secondary microbiome analysis of two randomised trials, one in adults and one in children, with no sample size given for the remission comparison; associations between baseline bacteria and later remission are correlational and need prospective validation.Study · Crohns Colitis 360