By Staff Reports
(Hawaii)– From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
People with fibromyalgia have pain in muscles, joints and tendons. But a study indicates exercise might help.
Researcher Dennis Ang of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center followed 170 patients over 36 weeks. They took part in moderate activity, such as brisk walking 20 minutes a day. He says patients who could stick it out for 12 weeks had improvement in symptoms:
“If they just sustained their level of physical activity past 12 weeks, their pain severity, which is a major symptom of fibromyalgia, would actually also get better.”
But he says people need to ease into it, starting with a couple of weeks of very light exercise a couple of days a week.
The study in the journal Arthritis Care and Research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Learn more at healthfinder.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.