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Podcast, Provider Interviews, Rheumer Has It

Rheumer Has It: The Science of Exercise & RA

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Summary:

In this episode, Cheryl and Eileen sit down with Dr. Brian Andonian of Duke University, whose research on exercise, aging, and rheumatic disease captured their attention at the 2025 ACR Conference. He sheds light on the powerful ways exercise influences the immune system, inflammation, cardiovascular health, and even cellular aging in rheumatoid arthritis, far beyond the outdated notion that RA is “just a joint disease.” 

Together, they break down common myths about fragility, rest, and “wear and tear,” while explaining why tailored exercise programs are not only safe but essential. Dr. Andonian also offers practical guidance for managing fatigue, using slow progression, and finding trustworthy exercise resources. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to understand how movement can improve whole-body health with RA.

Episode at a glance:

  • 1. Exercise is far more than “movement” – it directly supports immune health, slows accelerated aging, and improves disease activity in RA.
     Dr. Andonian explains how aerobic and strength training influence inflammation, cellular metabolism, and mitochondrial function in ways that go far beyond joint comfort.
  • 2. RA is a whole-body immune disease, so exercise must be tailored, not avoided.
     Listeners learn why joints are actually a secondary issue in RA, why “too fragile to exercise” is a myth, and how the right mix of aerobic, strength, and mobility work can support the cardiovascular, respiratory, and immune systems.
  • 3. There is no one-size-fits-all exercise plan; successful programs must be personalized.
     Dr. Andonian breaks down how arthritis type, disease location, comorbidities, and fatigue shape exercise prescriptions, and why slow progression and “exercise snacks” are essential for many patients.

Medical disclaimer: 

All content found on Arthritis Life public channels (including Rheumer Has It) was created for generalized informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Episode Sponsors

Rheum to THRIVE, an online course and support program Cheryl created to help people with rheumatic disease go from overwhelmed, confused and alone to confident, supported and connected. See all the details and join the program or waitlist now! 

Speaker Bios:

Dr Brian Andonian’s Bio

Brian Andonian, MD, MHSc, ATC is a rheumatologist and clinician scientist studying the effects of exercise training, diet, and lifestyle interventions to improve immune health, joint health, and overall health for persons with rheumatic disease, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The goal of his research is to improve outcomes in patients with chronic inflammatory diseases of aging such as RA, including disease activity, cardiometabolic risk, and disability, via personalized lifestyle prescription. In his lifestyle medicine clinical practice, he applies personalized therapeutic lifestyle interventions as integral components to the care of his patients with arthritis and rheumatic disease.

Eileen Davidson Bio

Eileen Davidson, also known as Chronic Eileen, is a disability and chronic illness advocate from Vancouver BC Canada. Living with a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, she spends a large focus on volunteering and creating awareness around arthritis. With The International Foundation for Autoimmune and Autoinflammatory Arthritis (AiArthritis) Eileen is the Educational Media Assistant. Along with AiArthritis, Eileen is a member of the Arthritis Research Canada patient advisory board, and author with over 100 published articles.

Cheryl Crow

Cheryl is an occupational therapist who has lived with rheumatoid arthritis for over twenty years. Her life passion is helping others with rheumatoid arthritis figure out how to live a full life despite arthritis, by developing tools to navigate physical, emotional and social challenges. She formed the educational company Arthritis Life in 2019 after seeing a huge need for more engaging, accessible, and (dare I say) FUN patient education and self-management resources.

Episode links:

Full Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00]

[00:00:05] Eileen Davidson: Welcome to Rheumer Has It, the podcast that busts myths, highlights evidence and inspires hope for living better with rheumatic disease.

[00:00:17] Cheryl Crow: Through plain language, interviews with experts, we offer actual knowledge so you can thrive today.

[00:00:22] Eileen Davidson: My name is Eileen

[00:00:23] Cheryl Crow: And my name is Cheryl.

[00:00:25] Eileen Davidson: Join us as we bust myths and spotlight evidence.

[00:00:29] Eileen Davidson: Now today, we are very excited to have somebody from that we saw speak at the most recent American College of Rheumatology conference in Chicago. She went to two of his sessions and I got to go to one and they were on exercise , and we knew right away that we had to invite Dr. Andonian here because we were just absolutely floored with the information that he shared and also how he shared it.

[00:00:51] Eileen Davidson: We’re really, really excited to have you here and Cheryl’s gonna talk a little bit more about what we’re gonna go on with next.

[00:00:59] Cheryl Crow: Yeah. I, you [00:01:00] had, these presentations that really talked about in so much depth, in scientific depth the science behind how nutrition helps with rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory forms of arthritis and how exercise helps.

[00:01:14] Cheryl Crow: Can you just let the listeners know a little bit about your presentations, and I guess I should we also say like your background, like what do you do? Who are you?

[00:01:24] Dr. Brian Andonian: Well, , thanks for having me. I, I can start off by giving some background about myself. I’m a rheumatologist and a physician scientist at Duke, and the focus of both my practice and research is in lifestyle medicine.

[00:01:37] Dr. Brian Andonian: And so lifestyle medicine to me encompasses six key pillars. Exercise is one, diet is another, but also stress management, social connections, and sleep as well as substance use.

[00:01:50] Dr. Brian Andonian: But my background really is in athletic training, exercise science, and that’s how really I got into this field and. I was asked at ACR to [00:02:00] give two different talks. One was based on my research, looking on how, how exercise helps our patients with rheumatic disease.

[00:02:09] Dr. Brian Andonian: And then the other talk was linking the biology of aging to rheumatic disease and how healthy lifestyle might combat aging and, and arthritis , as a next step from there.

[00:02:22] Cheryl Crow: That’s, that’s great. And yeah, I, the one that you did on the aging, I, it was an aha moment for me because I had heard that people with rheumatoid arthritis have a lower lifespan. But I thought it was kinda like, okay, towards the end, I didn’t, I didn’t realize it was actually throughout the lifespan we’re aging faster.

[00:02:39] Cheryl Crow: So me as a 44-year-old, I thought, okay. I’m aging normally, and then like at the end, it just all of a sudden, goes bad. So. Mm-hmm. Anyway, that was my aha moment. But we, today we really wanna go over some specific myths and facts about exercise and strength training in, in how these things actually work. Because [00:03:00] unfortunately there are a lot of myths out there.

[00:03:01] Cheryl Crow: So, the first myth is that people with arthritis are just too fragile to exercise, or exercise is gonna cause more quote unquote “wear and tear.” What would you say to that?

[00:03:12] Dr. Brian Andonian: This is a great, great place to start the discussion on exercise. ‘Cause this myth has really been around for decades. I would say patients still have concerns that are, that their arthritis is a limiting factor and that exercise could further damage their joints.

[00:03:28] Dr. Brian Andonian: But we know that the evidence is really the opposite, and there’s growing evidence that exercise is really beneficial for arthritis. And that’s across the board, whether we’re talking about osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis or spondyloarthritis. And there was a recent publication from the American College of Rheumatology really highlighting integrative interventions for patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

[00:03:50] Dr. Brian Andonian: So I think we can apply it to all of our patients, at least as far as how we know what we know at the moment and that’s that all our patients really should be [00:04:00] engaging in exercise. So exercise is a key component of the, the care of patients with rheumatic disease.

[00:04:07] Dr. Brian Andonian: The problem is, unfortunately, there’s more work that needs to be done in this area because the guidelines couldn’t give more specifics on the timing or the type of exercise, like aerobic exercise versus resistance training exercise.

[00:04:21] Dr. Brian Andonian: But it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t still prescribe exercise and still recommend exercise, but it’s just that we’re, we’re learning more all the time.

[00:04:30] Cheryl Crow: Yeah. Can you give a little more detail about those components? I used to always think exercise meant cardio, like you had to be running or, doing something where you’re really breathing heavy.

[00:04:41] Cheryl Crow: But I, I neglected strength training for a long time and to my detriment. So can you explain some of those core pillars of exercise?

[00:04:50] Dr. Brian Andonian: Right. I think most patients, and most of us just in general, when I say exercise, think of aerobic exercise, which is a key component. That’s your [00:05:00] walking or biking or swimming, things that get your heart rate and breathing rate up.

[00:05:04] Dr. Brian Andonian: But as you mentioned, another key component is strength and resistance training, and this is trying to build muscle or to get stronger muscles, and this can be. Going to the gym and using machines or using weights or, for our studies and patients with rheumatoid arthritis, using resistance bands, we found is really effective way to, to get stronger and build muscle.

[00:05:25] Dr. Brian Andonian: And then there’s other components to exercise that have to be worked in. And I grouped this under the idea of mobility exercise, so things that work on balance and flexibility and that can incorporate like mind body exercise, like yoga and tai chi. So there’s a lot of different areas that we need to hit when we’re talking about exercise and physical activity programs.

[00:05:45] Cheryl Crow: Yeah. I love it. And one more follow up question I have on that is, how does strength training or exercise slow down that accelerated aging phenomenon or make us not age as fast?

[00:05:59] Dr. Brian Andonian: Well, I, I love [00:06:00] that question. I think one key component is what we’re learning is the effect of exercise on inflammation, and we know that inflammation, even this low level of inflammation, is really tied to aging in general and diseases related to aging.

[00:06:14] Dr. Brian Andonian: So patients who have rheumatic disease or inflammatory diseases, we, we know well how inflammation impacts them, but also just any disease in aging is linked to inflammation. So there’s growing evidence showing that exercise can improve disease activity in multiple of our diseases, for example, rheumatoid arthritis.

[00:06:34] Dr. Brian Andonian: So actually improves how many joints are swollen, how many tender joints we have, as well as these inflammatory markers that we check in the clinic, things like sedimentation rate and C reactive protein. What I’m really fascinated is how we actually can get to improved inflammation. And our research and others would suggest that exercise really improves the way our immune system functions.

[00:06:57] Dr. Brian Andonian: So it’s not just that [00:07:00] exercise is purely anti-inflammatory, but it actually just helps our immune system function better depending on the situation, which to me is really the holy grail and rheumatology is figuring out how to get our immune system just to work the way it’s supposed to. Not attack itself, not put us at risk for infections, but there’s a lot of things we don’t really know yet.

[00:07:20] Dr. Brian Andonian: We’ve shown some links between our fitness, so how fit we are, we measure that some by something called the VO2 max testing. We found that our immune system changes like the metabolism in our immune cells are actually linked to our, our VO2 or our fitness. So there seems to be something about how exercise can impact the immune system on the cellular level to, to really make improvements.

[00:07:42] Dr. Brian Andonian: But we have a long way to go. But I think it’s exciting to know that exercise is not just good for our heart and lungs. It’s good for our immune system, and then also our joints as well.

[00:07:53] Cheryl Crow: That explanation was really helpful. Thank you. And I know that leads actually perfectly into Eileen’s next one.

[00:07:59] Eileen Davidson: [00:08:00] So obviously one of the biggest myths with arthritis is that it is only a joint disease, and with exercise it might be the myth that it doesn’t help anything else but the joints. How would you kind of bust that myth?

[00:08:15] Dr. Brian Andonian: Yeah, , it’s a great one too. The first point is really key that, especially talking about inflammatory rheumatic diseases, and we’ll use rheumatoid arthritis as an example.

[00:08:25] Dr. Brian Andonian: It’s really a disease of the immune system, although it affects the joints. So it’s really, I think the joints are a secondary problem. The example I give is that we see immune system changes in patients who go on to develop rheumatoid arthritis 10 and even 20 years before the actual diagnosis.

[00:08:41] Dr. Brian Andonian: So these antibodies, we check for rheumatoid arthritis like a rheumatoid factor or a CCP antibody. We see those many years before you actually get arthritis. So, this is one reason I would say that if exercise is helping our patients, it’s really targeting the immune system.

[00:08:59] Eileen Davidson: You [00:09:00] just said that the joints are a secondary problem. Can you elaborate a little bit more about that and why you would say that with diseases like inflammatory arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, that the joints are a secondary problem? What else is the problem?

[00:09:17] Dr. Brian Andonian: Yeah, so I think rheumatoid arthritis and our other inflammatory rheumatic diseases are immune system problems.

[00:09:23] Dr. Brian Andonian: I think of lupus as being a really good example, and diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus can affect the body in so many different ways, although you can get arthritis from both conditions. But for both conditions, you can get lung disease rheumatoid arthritis, you can get inflammation of your blood vessels.

[00:09:40] Dr. Brian Andonian: And there’s a lot of different ways that inflammation can impact someone who has rheumatoid arthritis. So even though it’s called rheumatoid arthritis, it really maybe is better rheumatoid disease because it, it can, it really affects the whole body and inflammation we know is affecting our whole body.

[00:09:55] Dr. Brian Andonian: So , that’s a really good question.

[00:09:58] Eileen Davidson: Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot [00:10:00] of, a lot from people that they would prefer it to be called rheumatoid disease because arthritis is only a small fraction of what really we are going through. So thank you. Cheryl, would you like to ask the next question?

[00:10:11] Cheryl Crow: Yeah. And almost all of us have a few, a period of a few years before our diagnosis where it was like some things off in my body, I’m not sure what. So yeah, if we had better screening tools, anyway, then we could maybe be able to catch those early.

[00:10:25] Dr. Brian Andonian: For sure. The pre RA, as we call them, yeah. We’re really trying to understand that group of people before they actually get full blown disease.

[00:10:33] Cheryl Crow: Yeah, but the next myth is that this is kind of going more to, okay, I’m bought in now I know that exercise is important. The myth is that there’s just one standardized exercise plan that works for everyone. And that it’s just found online. We just need to go online and find, you go on YouTube, like, what can you help break down?, Is it a one size fit all situation or not?

[00:10:56] Dr. Brian Andonian: Well, this gets at a lot of really key points here. As we talked about. [00:11:00] Exercise in includes multiple different types, aerobic resistance training, mobility, exercise, all going together. But then there’s a lot of exercise programs as you mentioned, you can go online and find a lot of exercise programs, but there’s not a lot of tailoring to the specific problems that our patients with rheumatic disease have.

[00:11:18] Dr. Brian Andonian: One of my goals and others who are interested in this space is how do we really prescribe exercise for the given individual? Because depending on where you have arthritis, for example, it’s gonna affect my approach to what I recommend. The easiest example, or maybe the most clear example is for my patients who have osteoarthritis or really, I guess really any arthritis that’s affecting the lower body.

[00:11:42] Dr. Brian Andonian: Think of the knees and the hips and even the spine. We think of walking as a really good form of exercise for people, but for my patients who have that lower extremity or spine arthritis, walking can be really hard and actually a lot of stress, and it can be very difficult to walk to get your aerobic [00:12:00] exercise because I think the impact can be too great for a lot of patients.

[00:12:04] Dr. Brian Andonian: So the recommendation probably should be, even though walking is good, maybe we can work towards walking by doing other things and that is offloading our joints through, maybe cycling on a bike or elliptical machine or anything in the water is really gonna be ideal. So getting in the pool and swimming or doing a pool exercise.

[00:12:23] Dr. Brian Andonian: So there needs to be a little more guidance than we currently have. Just, you can look online for exercise. I think as we, as a medical community and just society needs to appreciate the benefits here and hopefully we can develop better programs for the individual.

[00:12:39] Cheryl Crow: Yeah, and as an occupational therapist, of course, I can’t avoid bringing up that, patients can ask for referral to a physical therapist or occupational therapist.

[00:12:48] Cheryl Crow: I know mileage might vary, but if you could ask your local OT or PT clinic, do you have anyone there that has real experience with inflammatory arthritis that can be a good place to start if you want [00:13:00] that kind of hands-on, help.

[00:13:02] Cheryl Crow: And the other thing that, I know in one of your you went into a lot of detail and that I think some people are scared or nervous sometimes about like high impact exercise. What did you find on like high impact exercises in spondyloarthritis?

[00:13:17] Dr. Brian Andonian: Yeah. This goes back to that tailoring question. I think every form of arthritis has unique needs. We talked about osteoarthritis as maybe we need to modify activities to a certain extent.

[00:13:26] Dr. Brian Andonian: But spondyloarthritis is a probably one of the most unique forms of arthritis, and maybe exercise should be approached a little differently. It’s unique in a lot of ways because spondyloarthritis tends to affect younger men more than anyone else, versus really all the other kinds of arthritis, including osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis tend to affect women much more than men. And the other component is the areas where spondyloarthritis affects people.

[00:13:54] Dr. Brian Andonian: One key area is the sacroiliac joint, and this is the joint that connects the spine into our [00:14:00] pelvis and hips and really undergoes the highest amounts of load and stress of any joint in the body. And the idea that that’s one of the key areas of impact in the disease, among other reasons, we think that biomechanical loading and stress on the joints actually contributes to the arthritis and triggers the inflammation that people get.

[00:14:22] Dr. Brian Andonian: We know that exercise is really good for these patients,. So it’s not that we shouldn’t exercise, but maybe we should be avoiding really high impact type exercise. I think of Olympic style weightlifting or really heavy ballistic exercise that allows a lot of heavy running and jumping, maybe that’s not the appropriate focus for exercise, though I have patients who do all of that and do it really well without any problem. It’s probably more about how you’re building slowly to that type of program and not. Not over stressing the joints ’cause that can potentially trigger inflammation in spondyloarthritis.

[00:14:59] Cheryl Crow: That, that’s [00:15:00] really helpful. Thank you. I know Eileen has another one.

[00:15:03] Eileen Davidson: Often when people live with inflammatory arthritis, they’re maybe, I hear a lot, fatigue is the most debilitating symptom and sometimes over pain. A lot of the times I know myself when I’m really fatigued, I think I need to just listen to my body and I need to just rest. Exercise is just going to make me feel worse and make things worse. Is this true?

[00:15:29] Dr. Brian Andonian: It’s a tough question, I would say, because it is good to have intuition and listen to your body. And often our body, is telling us what we need and. It’s often tricky to connect fatigue with the cause of fatigue because inflammation in our body can cause fatigue, and we know that reducing activities can be good for certain kinds of inflammation.

[00:15:53] Dr. Brian Andonian: And when I say certain kinds, it’s generally acute inflammation or just a new inflammation. Say you have an infection. Our [00:16:00] body sends us signals to be less active to try to conserve energy for our immune system to take care of that infection, and there’s probably a lot of benefit for that in that situation.

[00:16:10] Dr. Brian Andonian: The problem is when you have that inflammation that persists and persists over time, it’s kind of this dysregulated pathway or that your body’s really giving you this signal when it shouldn’t necessarily be doing it over time, if that makes sense. So then your body’s moving against what its natural instincts are.

[00:16:28] Dr. Brian Andonian: And our patients with arthritis in general, I find have kinesiophobia, which is this idea of fear of moving that will make things worse. But exercise can really help with fatigue too. So it’s finding that balance.

[00:16:43] Dr. Brian Andonian: We have a lot of studies and our work would suggest that exercise really improves fatigue and interesting finding that I like to talk about is that fatigue improves with exercise, but we’re finding that fatigue improvements were highly associated with improvements in our [00:17:00] fitness, and also some findings that fatigue actually improves along the lines of mitochondrial function in our body. So there’s actually a connection between the fitness in our cells and the fatigue that we’re experiencing.

[00:17:12] Dr. Brian Andonian: And exercise might be a way to actually help with that. It’s just a matter of, you should still listen to your body, but really slowly try to build and try to improve your fitness over time. And , that can actually do the reverse of what your body’s trying to tell you.

[00:17:26] Dr. Brian Andonian: So I think that’s where we need all our, OTs and PTs and everybody who’s working with our patients to know that there’s a lot of benefit from exercise, not just from arthritis, but from other symptoms that our patients experience.

[00:17:40] Eileen Davidson: For those that are struggling with their fatigue for either inflammation reasons or maybe they’re also struggling with their mental health, do you have any words that you would maybe suggest for them to get started?

[00:17:56] Dr. Brian Andonian: Yeah, I think progressing slowly is, is really the [00:18:00] name of the game. People think about exercise and maybe they think of this perfect program where, to reach the guidelines, you’re getting 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise. But for someone who’s really fatigued, inflamed, and hurting, that can feel like a very daunting task.

[00:18:19] Dr. Brian Andonian: However we know that exercise even in little bits and at a time is it can be really helpful. It all adds up. So when you change the mindset to, it doesn’t have to be this perfect program. It doesn’t have to be that you’re getting exercise for 30 or 45 minutes. It can just be a couple minutes here and there, and it can be spaced out throughout the day, even if it’s just getting up from your chair.

[00:18:39] Dr. Brian Andonian: More times throughout the day, maybe trying to take the stairs more one more time than you were planning to. Little things like that can add up, so it doesn’t have to be this daunting task of getting that recommendation. You still want to build over time, but the hardest part is just getting started, and if you think about this is really slow progress that you’re supposed to [00:19:00] make, it really can help make things easier and more manageable.

[00:19:06] Eileen Davidson: There’s one saying that I’ve heard quite often, exercise is medicine. Why would you say that’s important for people living with arthritis?

[00:19:15] Dr. Brian Andonian: Yeah, the “exercise is medicine” is really referring to the idea that exercise has so many beneficial effects on the body and really can be similar to our pills that give us the benefit to actually help with the problems we have.

[00:19:31] Dr. Brian Andonian: I mentioned earlier about we, we think about exercise, improving our heart and our lung function, but if we think about exercise not just as a heart or lung therapy, it’s actually helping our joints, it’s helping our immune system. And if we can learn specifically about each disease that a patient would have, then we really can tailor the program.

[00:19:51] Dr. Brian Andonian: And it really becomes, this program actually helps your problem, not just exercise is good for you, you should do it. And I think that’s the messaging that people [00:20:00] often hear. But I found that when you really personalize it, it can help you in this specific way. It really becomes powerful and truly becomes a medicine.

[00:20:09] Dr. Brian Andonian: So that’s our goal and my goal as a lifestyle medicine practitioner, to get people to know that exercise and healthy lifestyle are more than just things that you’re told you should do. But you know, a lot of physicians and other providers don’t put a lot of emphasis on it as we should.

[00:20:26] Eileen Davidson: I actually have one more Rheumer that I’ve heard of, kind of around that. Does exercise help make our medications work better?

[00:20:36] Dr. Brian Andonian: Ooh, I love that question. A lot of things we need to learn. Certainly in the, our field of patients with a rheumatic disease. But I would say we’ve seen from our studies and from a lot of patients that yeah, exercise can help us maybe need less medication over time.. Maybe we can have less reliance on medication. And that would be another reason. Exercise and healthy lifestyle actually can potentially [00:21:00] reduce the need for medications.

[00:21:01] Dr. Brian Andonian: If living healthfully is a way to get there, that can be good motivation.

[00:21:06] Cheryl Crow: Yeah, a hundred percent. And so that is what I’ve been trying to do with really bumping up my strength training over the couple years, which I know I told you at the conference, I was like, this is magical. I don’t even understand how it’s working so well. I think it’s a vicious positive cycle of, it is improving my sleep, which is improving my fatigue, which is improving my mental health, which is improving my it’s so far beyond just my joints.

[00:21:29] Cheryl Crow: I mean, the joints feeling better is like super secondary to me. It’s really that quality of life.

[00:21:35] Cheryl Crow: So anyway we’re getting to the conclusion part of this episode and I, but before we get there, I wanna make sure everyone knows we are gonna have a lot of links in the show notes to what we’ve been talking about for people who wanna learn more.

[00:21:47] Cheryl Crow: But in one sentence, what is the most important takeaway you’d like someone to take from this episode?

[00:21:54] Dr. Brian Andonian: This is tough. Yeah. A lot of good take home points, but. I think just the idea that [00:22:00] exercise is really critically important for helping managing arthritis of any kind, and it really should be integrated to any program.

[00:22:08] Dr. Brian Andonian: And as I mentioned, there should be kind of a slow progression. Just getting out there and doing any little bit will help you get to that point. And that exercise program really should include not just aerobic training, but also strength and resistance training, which I love that you brought up. Again, I think there’s so much that strength training can help.

[00:22:27] Dr. Brian Andonian: Just building stronger muscles can help in so many ways. As you mentioned, including our, the, our immune function too, but also including balance and mobility exercise to have a well-rounded program.

[00:22:39] Cheryl Crow: I love it. Thank, this is so helpful. Thank you. I know Eileen has one quick other question.

[00:22:45] Eileen Davidson: So finding reliable resources on exercising with inflammatory arthritis can be a challenge.

[00:22:51] Eileen Davidson: There’s lots of fitness influencers and websites out there that are gonna be recommending exercises that are not good if you have joint pain. Do [00:23:00] you have any resources that you would recommend for our listeners?

[00:23:05] Dr. Brian Andonian: Yeah, this is a huge area of need. So I think our, we have some videos that we developed as part of one of our research studies for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, looking at aerobic and resistance training videos, and there’s a couple ways you could define that.

[00:23:21] Dr. Brian Andonian: I do think that the UNC PREVAIL website, a couple of colleagues of mine just down the road from Duke, have developed a really good compendium of exercise and has videos and a lot of recommendations is a really good place to start.

[00:23:35] Dr. Brian Andonian: And I’ll put a plugin for a group that we newly formed of academic rheumatologists. We formed this group called Calm Rheum, or the Coalition to Advance Integrative and Lifestyle Medicine and Rheumatology. We’re working on building a website that will hopefully have all these resources, at least that we currently have in one place in terms of diet and exercise and stress management and sleep.

[00:23:59] Dr. Brian Andonian: [00:24:00] So that’s in, it’s in prog in progress. So, I’ll have to update you when we complete that because there’s a big need and there’s a lot of people, as you mentioned talking about the best exercise and lifestyle programs. But I think we need the evidence behind the programs before we can fully recommend it.

[00:24:16] Dr. Brian Andonian: And that’s what our group is trying to do, to show the evidence and then give those resources to our patients.

[00:24:22] Eileen Davidson: Absolutely. As a patient partner with Arthritis Research Canada I know how important those resources are, the credible resources, and it’s really exciting to know that you are also creating some of those, and I can’t wait to hear about that one.

[00:24:37] Dr. Brian Andonian: Great.

[00:24:37] Eileen Davidson: So again, thank you so much for coming here today and being on the podcast with us. Like I said. Both me and Cheryl, when we saw you speak at ACR this year, we just knew we had to have you on here.

[00:24:49] Eileen Davidson: You explain why exercise is so important for so many factors, not just our joints, but because RA and inflammatory arthritis is a systemic disease, [00:25:00] so it helps so many different parts of our mind and body. And again, thank you so much for being here today.

[00:25:07] Dr. Brian Andonian: Thanks so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.

[00:25:09] Cheryl Crow: Yeah, thank you. And just to all the listeners, don’t forget to check out the full show notes on the Arthritis Life website and you’ll see a transcript there as if you like to read rather than listening. And there’s also a YouTube link to this interview. So thanks so much again, and we’ll sign off for now.

[00:25:27] Cheryl Crow: Bye-bye.

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