Exercise Benefits Fibromyalgia Patients

By Dr. Joseph Mercola
updated on 06/20/2007 at 11:06AM

Article reproduced from http://www.mercola.com/

Patients with fibromyalgia can boost their strength and improve certain parameters with weight-bearing exercise, researchers from Finland have demonstrated.

Women with fibromyalgia completed a 21-week strength training program and it was found to reduce their levels of depression and fatigue, but pain levels did not change.

Researchers divided 21 women with fibromyalgia into two groups.
Eleven women went through the strength training program and 10 received no special care.
An additional 12 healthy women went through the weight training program as "control" subjects.

About 90% of people with fibromyalgia are women.

Currently, it is standard treatment to use light exercise or physical therapy, along with medication and psychological therapy, as part of a comprehensive plan for treating fibromyalgia. While no studies have found that exercise improves pain, it has been shown to help patients function better, improve mood, and reduce fatigue.

Annals of Rheumatic Disease 2001; 60: 21-26

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

Exercise is a key to good health for all of us. However, most people with fibromyalgia have so much muscle pain that they can not exercise.

In a few months I will be speaking at the National Fibromyalgia Conference. I plan on discussing the results my staff and I have been achieving with NST. I have never seen any single modality work so well for fibromyalgia. We have not had 100% improvement, but it is very close.

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