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Just keep moving, ladies
Women in
their 70s who keep active could be dodging painful arthritis
symptoms, according to research published today 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 ½ 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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