SynthesisSports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.)2023
Metabolic Adaptations to Morning Versus Afternoon Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Influence of Morning and Afternoon Exercise on Body Composition and Metabolic Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Sports medicine - open · 2026Pooled it
- Effects of Vitamin C and/or E Supplementation on Glycemic Control and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Type 2 Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Subgroup Meta-analysis.Nutrition reviews · 2026Pooled it
- Does Protein Ingestion Timing Affect Exercise-Induced Adaptations? A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis.Nutrients · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of Mitoquinone (MitoQ) Supplementation on Aerobic Exercise Performance and Oxidative Damage: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Sports medicine - open · 2024Pooled it
- The role of muscle disuse in muscular and cardiovascular fitness: A systematic review and meta-regression.European journal of sport science · 2024Pooled it
- Efficacy of morning versus afternoon aerobic exercise training on reducing metabolic syndrome components: A randomized controlled trial.The Journal of physiology · 2024Trial
- Muscle movement and metabolism: exercise and skeletal muscle as mediators of health-a report from the 26th Annual Harvard Nutrition Obesity Symposium, 2025.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2026Article
- Reallocating morning physical activity to later-day activity and its association with type 2 diabetes incidence: The Maastricht Study.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2026Article
- Muscle Rev-erb controls time-dependent adaptations to chronic exercise in mice.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Diurnal timing of physical activity in relation to obesity and diabetes in the German National Cohort (NAKO).International journal of obesity (2005) · 2025Observational
- Timing of resistance exercise and cardiometabolic outcomes in adults with prediabetes: a secondary analysis.Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) · 2025Article
- Clockwork conditioning: Aligning the skeletal muscle clock with time-of-day exercise for cardiometabolic health.Journal of molecular and cellular cardiology · 2025Review
- Time for precision exercise prescription: the same timing may not fit all.The Journal of physiology · 2024Article
- Timing of Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity, Mortality, Cardiovascular Disease, and Microvascular Disease in Adults With Obesity.Diabetes care · 2024Article
- Association between circadian physical activity trajectories and incident type 2 diabetes in the UK Biobank.Scientific reports · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSome physiological responses such as circulating glucose as well as muscle performance show a circadian rhythmicity. In the present study we aimed to quantitatively synthesize the data comparing the metabolic adaptations induced by morning and afternoon training.
methodsPubMed, SCOPUS, and Web of Science databases were systematically searched for studies comparing the metabolic adaptations (> 2 weeks) between morning and afternoon training. A meta-analysis was performed using random-effects models with DerSimonian-Laird methods for fasting blood glucose, hemoglobin A1c (HbAc1), homeostatic model assessment (HOMA), insulin, triglycerides, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and high-density lipoprotein (HDL).
resultsWe identified 9 studies with 11 different populations (n = 450 participants). We found that afternoon exercise was more effective at reducing circulating triglycerides [standardized mean difference (SMD) - 0.32; 95% confidence interval (CI) - 0.616 to - 0.025] than morning training. Moreover, afternoon tended to decrease fasting blood glucose (SMD - 0.24; 95% CI - 0.478 to 0.004) to a greater extent than morning training.
conclusionMetabolic adaptations to exercise may be dependent on the time of day. Morning training does not show superior effects to afternoon exercise in any of the analyzed outcomes. However, afternoon training is more effective at reducing circulating triglyceride levels and perhaps at reducing fasting blood glucose than morning training. The study was preregistered at PROSPERO (CRD42021287860).
Indexed as
Identifiers
37458979What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.