Patients With Mild Lupus Still Have Impaired Aerobic Capacity Low physical activity levels may lead to more severe impairment

Even Patients with mild or inactive systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) had reduced aerobic capacity compared with matched controls, These findings suggest that insufficient physical activity could impose a greater deterioration on physiological reserve and health-related quality of life in SLE patients than controls," and reinforce the need for physical activity recommendations for this patient group, they stated. The main finding of this study was that SLE patients with a physically inactive lifestyle, irrespective of their disease onset, showed poorer aerobic capacity and health-related quality of life when compared with physically inactive controls matched by age, sex, and BMI," the authors wrote. Based on their findings, the investigators postulated that SLE patients with low levels of physical activity may experience more severe impairment in function and wellness compared with controls. "One may speculate that higher levels of physical activity than those generally recommended to healthy individuals might be required to better alleviate symptoms in SLE since sedentary lifestyle worsened disease flares. Cumulative damage and disease activity do not seem to account for the impairments found in SLE patients, since patients with very mild disease who were free of cardiovascular and musculoskeletal involvements were selected for the study. They need to study why all SLE patients have worse aerobic capacity. http://www.medpagetoday.com/Rheumatology/Lupus/57380?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2016-04-16&eun=g721819d0r