Randomised trial, 2018
Does swimming reduce premenstrual syndrome symptoms?
Yes. Swimming significantly reduced anxiety, depression, cramps, headaches, and most other PMS symptoms, but it did not help irritability or food cravings.
What they did
70 women with PMS were randomly divided into two equal groups. One group did swimming exercise and the other did nothing. Both groups filled out daily symptom reports at the start and end of the study.
What they found
The swimming group had significantly lower symptom counts than the control group (P < 0.001). Key improvements in swimmers included: depression decreased by 79.29 percent compared to 15.56 percent in controls, feeling out of control decreased by 91.67 percent, anxiety decreased by 33.3 percent, and significant improvements in tension, confusion, headaches, and cramps. No significant difference for irritability, crying, or food cravings.
What it means for you
Swimming may help most PMS symptoms. However, the study does not say how often or how long women swam, and what the control group did during the study period. More detailed research is needed.
70
women studied
-79.29%
depression improvement in swimmers
-91.67%
feeling out of control improvement
About the study
- Original title
- Effect of swimming exercise on premenstrual syndrome
- Authors
- Maged AM, Abbassy AH, Sakr HRS et al.
- Journal
- Archives of gynecology and obstetrics
- Year
- 2018
- Study design
- Randomised trial
- Participants
- 70
- What was tested
- Swimming exercise
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.1007/s00404-018-4664-1
Topics
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