French researchers have suggested that cardio-respiratory aerobic exercise is good for patients suffering from stable rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

The research team from the University of Grenoble Medical School in France discovered that the sufferers of RA who worked out on a regular basis experienced improved function, less joint pain and greater quality of life.

According to WHO, RA, a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by swollen joints, pain, tautness, exhaustion, and general malaise affects around 1% of the total population.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) citing health-related quality of life (HRQL) researches discovered that RA patients were 40% more likely to report fair or poor general health and twice as likely to have a health-linked activity limitation as compared with those without arthritis.

The new research chaired by Athan Baillet, carried out an abstract search of relative medical journals for studies that researched RA patients and impact of aerobic exercise.

The scientists analyzed 14 researches and meta-analysis comprised 510 suffereres in the intervention group and 530 in the control group. Partakers in these researches had a mean age of 44-68 years and their RA disease duration was 1-16 years.

The scientists equated HRQL, the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), joint count, and pain using a visual analog scale (VAS) among patients in the studies.

Dr. Baillet stated, "Our results show that patients with stable RA would benefit from regular aerobic exercise. Cardio-respiratory conditioning appears safe and its effects, while small, help to reduce joint pain and improve function."

Scientists examined the effectiveness of work out on RA symptoms by making use of standardized mean differences (SMDs), which is the difference (between groups) of mean outcome variation from baseline/SD at baseline of aerobic exercises versus non-aerobic rehabilitation. Meta analysis of the research showed that exercise improved the post-intervention quality of life, HAQ score and pain VAS.

The results of the study will be released in the July print issue of Arthritis Care and Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology. (With Inputs from Agencies)