Effect of beta-hydroxymethylbutyrate (HMB) supplementation on markers of muscle damage and body composition after exercise: a meta-analysis study

In this meta-analysis, the effect of beta-hydroxymethylbutyrate (HMB) supplementation on muscle damage and body composition markers was investigated.

A systematic search was conducted from PubMed, Google scholar, Sciencedirect, SID, Scopus, IranMedex, Irandoc databases, all randomized controlled clinical trials, which were related to HMB supplementation on creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase ( LDH) and body composition indices, fat mass (FM), fat free mass (FFM) and body mass (BM) were selected. Fixed and random effects models for meta-analysis of average effect size (difference in mean with 95% confidence interval), in research related to creatine kinase (16 studies), lactate dehydrogenase (14 studies), body fat mass (17 studies), fat-free mass Body (20 studies) and body weight (23 studies) were done with the help of CMA2 software.  

The meta-analysis results showed that HMB supplementation significantly reduced CK (ES = -0.22, 95% CI = -0.86 to 0.41, p = 0.034), LDH (= 0.34) ES, 95% CI = 0.31 to 0.57, p = 0.022) and FM (ES = 0.43, 95% CI - 0.74 to - 0.119, p = 0.007), and it was associated with a significant increase in FFM (ES=0.31, 0.007 to 0.61% CI 95, p=0.045), but there was no effect on BM (ES=0.054, 0.09 -0 to 0.20 =%CI 95, p=0.46).

In general, the results of the meta-analysis showed that chronic supplementation of HMB causes a significant decrease in muscle damage index enzymes such as CK and LDH after exercise, and it was also associated with a significant decrease in FM and an increase in FFM.