A new study has found that people with inflammatory muscle disease can improve their fitness and muscle strength more with high-intensity workouts than with regular home exercises.
This research, from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and published in eBioMedicine, shows that pushing a bit harder might actually be both safe and more effective for people who are newly diagnosed with this condition.
Inflammatory muscle diseases, also known as idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM), are rare autoimmune disorders. These diseases make the body’s immune system attack the muscles, which leads to muscle weakness and feeling tired all the time.
Doctors usually treat these diseases with medication along with light or moderate home exercise to help maintain strength. But until now, those lighter exercises haven’t done much to improve overall fitness levels.
To find out if a tougher workout could help more, researchers studied 23 patients who were recently diagnosed with IIM. These patients came from two hospitals in Sweden. They were randomly split into two groups.
One group did high-intensity interval training (HIIT) on a stationary bike three times a week for 12 weeks. The other group followed a more traditional home exercise plan with moderate intensity.
The researchers measured the patients’ fitness, muscle strength, and disease activity before and after the 12-week period. They wanted to see which group improved the most.
The results were clear. The group that did high-intensity training saw a big jump in their fitness levels — about 16% improvement. Meanwhile, the group that did regular home exercises only improved by about 2%.
Muscle endurance also increased more in the HIIT group. Even their muscle cells showed better energy production, thanks to improved mitochondrial function — this is how the cells make energy.
One of the most important findings was that disease activity stayed stable in both groups. This means that even though the HIIT workouts were much harder, they didn’t make the inflammation or the disease worse. There was no sign of extra muscle damage either.
This is big news because people with muscle diseases are often told to take it easy. But this study shows that working out harder can actually make people stronger and more fit — without making their condition worse.
It could also help prevent heart problems, since better fitness usually means a lower risk of heart disease. People who feel stronger and have more endurance can also live more independently and do more in their daily lives.
Dr. Kristofer Andreasson, one of the study authors, said that this kind of training could become a useful part of treatment in the future. Right now, medication is the main way to manage muscle disease. But adding a strong exercise plan could help improve people’s health and quality of life even more.
However, the researchers also noted that this was a small study with only 23 participants. More research is needed to confirm the results and see what happens over a longer period of time. Still, the early signs are promising and open the door to new ways of helping people with inflammatory muscle disease.
If you care about muscle, please read studies about factors that can cause muscle weakness in older people, and scientists find a way to reverse high blood sugar and muscle loss.
For more health information, please see recent studies about an easy, cheap way to maintain muscles, and results showing these vegetables essential for your muscle strength.
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