Health Benefits of Different Sports: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal and Intervention Studies Including 2.6 Million Adult Participants

Sports Medicine - Open

Table 5 The effects of swimming on health outcomes: results of five meta-analyses

Health outcome	n*	d^†	95% CI^‡	p^§	I² (%)^∥	τ^2¶	Q**	p^††	95% PI^‡‡
Body fat percentage	86 (3)	–2.98	–4.30, –1.67	< 0.001	70.6	0.95	6.33	0.042	–5.30, –0.66
Total cholesterol (mmol/L)	86 (3)	–0.31	–0.52, –0.10	0.004	0.0	0.00	0.55	0.759	–0.52, –0.10
HDL cholesterol (mmol/L)	86 (3)	0.15	0.07, 0.24	< 0.001	0.0	0.00	0.67	0.715	0.07, 0.24
LDL cholesterol (mmol/L)	86 (3)	–0.17	–0.39, 0.05	0.120	40.8	0.02	3.08	0.214	–0.52, 0.17
Triglycerides (mmol/L)	86 (3)	–0.20	–0.34, –0.05	0.007	12.3	0.00	1.68	0.433	–0.39, 0.00

^*Pooled sample size (number of intervention groups), where number of studies = number of intervention groups – 1
^†Pooled mean difference between the pre-post effects found in the intervention and control groups. A positive value indicates a larger increase in the average score in a given test as a result of swimming participation, compared with controls
^‡95% confidence interval for d
^§p-value for d
∥I² measure of heterogeneity between studies expressed as percentage
^¶Tau-squared measure of heterogeneity between studies
^**Cochran’s Q
^††p-value from the Cochran’s Q test of heterogeneity between studies
^‡‡95% prediction interval for d