medwireNews: Findings from a randomized trial indicate that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) may improve cardiorespiratory fitness in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA).
As reported in RMD Open, the 30 patients who were randomly allocated to take part in an 11-week HIIT program experienced a significantly greater improvement in average maximal oxygen uptake from baseline to the 3-month follow-up than the 31 control patients who were asked not to change their exercise habits, with improvements of 3.97 versus 0.25 mL/kg per minute.
Moreover, patients in the HIIT group had a significantly greater decrease in truncal fat at 3 months than those in the control group (0.11 vs 1.39% decrease), and the difference in maximal oxygen uptake between the groups was maintained until 9 months, say the researchers.
These findings suggest that HIIT could “be beneficial in patients with PsA in preventing cardiovascular disease by increasing cardiorespiratory fitness and reducing abdominal fat,” conclude Ruth Stoklund Thomsen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim) and team.
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