Women with fibromyalgia need to get moving to improve quality of life – new study

Replacing sedentary behaviour with physical activity is associated with better quality of life and lower disease impact in women with fibromyalgia, a team reports in Arthritis Care and Research.

It can be difficult for people with fibromyalgia to take even light forms of physical activity, yet the research shows that it can improve symptoms. Now experts have looked at the impact of light and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity has on over 400 women with fibromyalgia.

First they measured how much time the volunteers spent doing physical activity or being sedentary. Then they assessed their quality of life and impact of the disease.

Substituting 30 minutes of sedentary time with light physical activity was associated with better bodily pain, vitality, social functioning and all aspects of disease impact. Replacing sedentary time with moderate-to-vigorous physical activity resulted in similar benefits, albeit not quite as strong.

The team concludes:

“Allocating time of sedentary behavior to either light physical activity or moderate-to-vigorous physical activity was associated with better quality of life and lower disease impact in women with fibromyalgia.”

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