walking with arthritis

Research shows the people with arthritis can benefit greatly from low-impact exercise like walking, but two out of three arthritic adults don’t regularly go for walks, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

MedPage Today reported May 3 that 53 percent of people with arthritis told pollsters that they don’t take walks at all, and another 13.1 percent said they walked less than 90 minutes total per week. Even so, walking was the most common type of physical activity reported by people with arthritis, with 5.3 percent saying the walked for 90 to 120 minutes, 5.6 percent saying they walked for 120 to 150 minutes, and 23.2 percent reporting walking more than 150 minutes weekly.

The Arthritis Foundation’s Walk With Ease program can help people with arthritis get more active; it entails walking three times a week for 30 to 40 minutes over a period of 6 weeks. “Walking is a low-impact, acceptable, convenient, inexpensive, feasible, and proven physical activity intervention that can help reduce arthritis pain, improve function, and move persons with arthritis along the continuum of physical activity,” according to the CDC.

The research was published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.