Bruce B et al. (2005) Aerobic exercise and its impact on musculoskeletal pain in older adults: a 14 year prospective, longitudinal study. Arthritis Res Ther 7: R1263–R1270

Extending their previous work demonstrating a reduction in pain in older adults who undertook regular intense exercise over a 6-year period, Bruce et al. have recently reported similar results after following the study group for a total of 14 years. As it was unknown whether long-term high-impact exercise such as running might increase pain, by causing fractures or soft-tissue injury, this study has helped to confirm the benefits of aerobic exercise in an elderly population.

The individuals studied included 492 members of an over-50s runners' association and 374 community-matched controls, randomly selected from a lipid-research study cohort comprising individuals of a similar age. To address the potential bias from self-selection and the presence of exercisers in the control group, all individuals in the study were also grouped into those who had ever run for exercise (n = 565) and those who had not (n = 301). Each person received an annual health-assessment questionnaire addressing exercise, health and demographic variables, including a pain assessment based on a visual analog scale (0 = no pain, 100 = severe pain).

Over 14 years, individuals who had ever run had lower BMI and continued to exercise more vigorously than nonrunners, and members of the runners' association had pain levels approximately 25% lower than those of controls. Although fractures were more common in runners than nonrunners, after adjusting for sex, baseline BMI and study withdrawal, running was still associated with significantly reduced pain, contributing to a reduction in the morbidity generally associated with ageing.