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Exercising is easy, inexpensive, and has no side effects. In addition, there is increasing evidence that it is the best recipe to prevent and/or help treat various pathologies. In the case of osteoarthritis, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), a body linked to the United Kingdom Department of Health, has updated its recommendations and advises exercise more and lose weight to control the painas well as reduce the use of certain drugs.
Clinical evidence has shown that personalized physical activity, both muscle strengthening and aerobics, can achieve good results in this chronic degenerative disease that affects joint cartilage and causes pain, limited mobility, stiffness, functional disability and joint deformity. .
The most affected are kneeslas hips and the small joints of the manos.
The draft of the updated NICE guidelines published this Friday on the care and management of these patients indicates that health professionals should support people with osteoarthritis and overweight by helping them choose a slimming goal to help control symptoms. Losing weight improves many aspects of health and one of them is reducing joint pain in people with osteoarthritis.
“Osteoarthritis can cause people discomfort and prevent them from doing some of their normal daily activities. However, there is evidence showing that muscle strengthening and aerobic exercise can have an impact not only in managing the condition, but also in giving people a better quality of life. Starting that journey can be uncomfortable for some people at first, and they need to be supported and given enough information to help them manage their condition over a long period of time,” said Dr Paul Chrisp, Director of the NICE Guidelines Centre. The expert believes that “although topical and sometimes oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) continue to be an important treatment option for osteoarthritis, we have made the decision to not recommend some pain relievers, such as paracetamol and some opioids for osteoarthritis. This is because new evidence has shown that there was little or no benefit to people’s quality of life, pain or psychological distress and, in particular, for strong opioids, there was evidence that they may cause harm. long-term, including possible addiction.
The draft of the new British guideline also recommends diagnosing osteoarthritis clinically, without the need for imaging, in people over 45 years of age who have activity-related joint pain and who do not have joint-related morning stiffness or morning stiffness that is not lasts more than 30 minutes.
osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis and one of the leading causes of pain and disability worldwide. It is estimated that there are approximately 7.4 million people over the age of 45 in England identified with this pathology, which is also highly prevalent in Spain: it affects more than 7 million people, and one of the most frequent locations is the knee . «The prevalence in our country is 10.2% (14% women and 5.7% men), it must be taken into account that the knee is a weight-bearing joint that supports weight when doing basic activities such as walking, climbing and go down stairs or sit down,” explains Dr. Raquel Almodóvar, rheumatologist at Fundación Alcorcón University Hospital and one of the coordinators of the Reumafit project, carried out by the Spanish Society of Rheumatology (SER), which seeks to provide rheumatologists with tools to prescribe consultation exercise.
Correctly applied exercise is one of the safest treatments and has hardly any adverse effects for people with osteoarthritis. Physical activity and therapeutic exercise carried out correctly, in addition to the beneficial effects already mentioned, improve pain and reduce the limitation in daily activities and hardly produce any adverse effects. In people with osteoarthritis associated with other diseases, it is also indicated because it improves physical function, quality of life and emotional well-being.
“Obesity and other components of the metabolic syndrome, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, are risk factors or comorbidities associated with osteoarthritis. Likewise, an increase in mortality -mainly from cardiovascular causes- has been seen in people with osteoarthritis. Hence the practice of physical exercise is a great ally for these patients» warns Dr. Almodóvar.
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