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Exercise
in old age prevents onset of arthritis symptoms
Women's Health News
Published:
Friday, 30-Mar-2007
Women in their 70s who keep active could
be dodging painful arthritis symptoms, according to research published
in Arthritis Research & Therapy.
The study
is the first to show that the more you exercise, the better your
chances of preventing the onset of stiff and painful joints.
Kristiann Heesch and colleagues at the
University of Queensland, Australia examined data on middle-aged
(48-55) and older (72-79) women collected using surveys over three
years as part of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health.
Excluding women who reported arthritis symptoms at the beginning of the
study, the authors looked at those who began reporting stiff or painful
joints 'often' and how much exercise they undertook.
The results suggest
that for women in the older age bracket, doing a little over an hour of
moderate physical activity each week will lessen your chances of
developing frequent arthritis symptoms in the next three years. Pushing
that up to 2 ? hours per week is even more likely to prevent arthritis
symptoms appearing. These results were not seen for the middle-aged
group. A debilitating health problem which is more likely to strike as
we get older and affects more women than men, arthritis is almost as
common as cardiovascular disease in Australia, affecting 17% of the
population. By 2020 this figure is set to approach US levels, where
arthritis is the most prevalent chronic condition for middle aged and
older people, affecting over a fifth of the population. Exercising into
old age could ensure movement without stiffness and pain for longer,
and could reduce the burden of arthritis on the healthcare system.
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