ReviewRMD open2022
Effects of physical exercise and body weight on disease-specific outcomes of people with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs): systematic reviews and meta-analyses informing the 2021 EULAR recommendations for lifestyle improvements in people with RMDs.
Review in RMD open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 76 citations in OpenAlex.
- Physical Exercise as an Adjuvant to Glucocorticoid Therapy: Clinical Recommendations and Evidence Review.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Pooled it
- The 2026 British Society for Rheumatology guideline for pain management in people with inflammatory arthritis.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2026Guideline
- Exercise and physical activity for fatigue, disease activity and immune-inflammatory outcomes in adults with systemic lupus erythematosus: an umbrella review.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Pooled it
- Frequency of irritable bowel syndrome in spondyloarthritis: a multicentric cross-sectional study and meta-analysis.RMD open · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Cost-utility of long-term exercise therapy in people with axial spondyloarthritis and severe functional limitations: a randomized, controlled trial.Rheumatology international · 2026Trial
- Effect of an Online, Interactive Lifestyle Intervention Program on 12-Month Disease Management Outcomes: Protocol for The Healthy Living in Inflammatory Arthritis (HELIA) Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2026Trial
- Trial
- Self-Perceptions of Aging and Physical Activity in Older Adults with Arthritis: Impact of General Health.Journal of applied gerontology : the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society · 2025Trial
- A randomised controlled trial to assess the feasibility and acceptability of remote psychosocial and exercise interventions for people with lupus: The ADAPT feasibility trial.Rheumatology international · 2025Trial
- One-year effectiveness of long-term exercise therapy in people with axial spondyloarthritis and severe functional limitations.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2025Trial
- Trial
- Regular Exercise Improved Fatigue and Musculoskeletal Pain in Young Adult Psoriatic Patients without Psoriatic Arthritis.Nutrients · 2023Trial
- Digital self-management engagement and long-term patient-reported outcome trajectories in inflammatory arthritis: a real-world retrospective cohort study.Clinical rheumatology · 2026Article
- Mapping the Social Network Structure and Composition of Black Individuals With Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Conditions.Arthritis care & research · 2026Article
- Patterns and changes in lifestyle habits of patients with rheumatoid arthritis during the first three years post-diagnosis.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Clinical and inflammatory factors associated with prevalent gout in a Brazilian hospital population.Clinics (Sao Paulo, Brazil) · 2026Article
- Clinical-psychosocial archetypes predict short-term outcomes in inflammatory arthritis: an unsupervised segmentation study.Clinical rheumatology · 2026Observational
- Integrating Behavioral Health Services for Individuals With Rheumatic Diseases: A Quantitative Analysis of a Pilot Study.ACR open rheumatology · 2026Article
- Personalized exercise therapy during targeted drug therapy tapering in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a pilot randomized controlled trial.BMC rheumatology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
19 authors at 16 institutions in 18 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundA European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) taskforce was convened to develop recommendations for lifestyle behaviours in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs). This paper reviews the literature on the effects of physical exercise and body weight on disease-specific outcomes of people with RMDs.
methodsThree systematic reviews were conducted to summarise evidence related to exercise and weight in seven RMDs: osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA), psoriatic arthritis, systemic sclerosis and gout. Systematic reviews and original studies were included if they assessed exercise or weight in one of the above RMDs, and reported results regarding disease-specific outcomes (eg, pain, function, joint damage). Systematic reviews were only included if published between 2013-2018. Search strategies were implemented in the Medline, Embase, Cochrane Library of systematic reviews and CENTRAL databases.
results236 articles on exercise and 181 articles on weight were included. Exercise interventions resulted in improvements in outcomes such as pain and function across all the RMDs, although the size of the effect varied by RMD and intervention. Disease activity was not influenced by exercise, other than in axSpA. Increased body weight was associated with worse outcomes for the majority of RMDs and outcomes assessed. In general, study quality was moderate for the literature on exercise and body weight in RMDs, although there was large heterogeneity between studies.
conclusionThe current literature supports recommending exercise and the maintenance of a healthy body weight for people with RMDs.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.