BACKGROUND: The value of exercise as an intervention for the prevention of postmenopausal bone loss is a controversial subject. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of exercise in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. METHODS: We searched PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, Chinese biomedical literature database, CNKI, VIP database. Randomized controlled clinical trialsof exercise in healthy postmenopausal women were considered. Healthy postmenopausal women aged between 50 to 70 years were included, regardless of race, nationality, and region. Articles about patients that had severe diseases were excluded. Review Manager 5.0 published by Cochrane Collaboration was used for statistical analysis. Bone mineral density and the incidence of fracture were evaluated. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Nine randomized controlled trials were included. The result of meta analysis showed that there was significant difference in bone mineral density (WMD 0.96, 95%CI 0.47 to 1.44). These indicated that exercise is effective in increasing the bone mineral density in postmenopausal women, there has been no apparent effect seen on fractures, and the results still need to be confirmed by high quality, large sample size randomized controlled trials.

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