ArticleTherapeutic advances in musculoskeletal disease2023
Mechanisms hypothesized for pain-relieving effects of exercise in fibromyalgia: a scoping review.
Article in Therapeutic advances in musculoskeletal disease, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Impact of Standard Care Versus Intrinsic Relaxation at Home on Physiological Parameters in Patients with Fibromyalgia: A Comparative Cohort Study from Romania.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Trial
- The Effects of a 12-Week Home-Based Adapted Physical Activity Intervention on Health-Related Physical Fitness in Adult Women with Fibromyalgia Syndrome: An Interventional Field Study.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2026Article
- Efficacy and safety of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for women with fibromyalgia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Reumatologia · 2026Article
- Effect of Physical Activity on Chronic Widespread Pain: Insights From Meta-Analysis and Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization.Journal of pain research · 2025Article
- Redesigning the Care of Musculoskeletal Conditions With Lifestyle Medicine.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Innovations, quality & outcomes · 2024Article
- Management of Fibromyalgia: An Update.Biomedicines · 2024Review
- Exercise Training for Chronic Pain: Available Evidence, Current Recommendations, and Potential Mechanisms.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2024Review
- Comparative efficacy of neuromodulation and structured exercise program on pain and muscle oxygenation in fibromyalgia patients: a randomized crossover study.Frontiers in physiology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Exercise is one of the most recommended management strategies by treatment guidelines for fibromyalgia (FM); however, the mechanism through which exercise improves pain in FM is still unknown. Objective: We aimed to summarize the hypothesized theoretical mechanisms for the pain-relieving effects of exercise in people with FM. Eligibility Criteria: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in English reporting mechanisms for pain-relieving effects of exercise in the 'Introduction' and 'Discussion' sections and significant within- group or between-group effects of exercise interventions were included. Sources of Evidence: We searched the databases Ovid MEDLINE(R), EMBASE, CINAHL, COCHRANE, Sports Discuss, and AMED with the keywords: exercise and fibromyalgia until December 2021. Charting Methods: Two authors independently performed title/abstract, full-text review, and data abstraction using a data abstraction form. The hypothesized mechanisms from individual studies were grouped into three categories. Results: The literature search resulted in 2147 studies, out of which 220 studies were considered for full-text review. A total of 50 RCTs proposing 29 unique mechanisms for the pain-relieving effects of exercise were included. These mechanisms were divided into three categories: physical, neuro-physiological, and psychological. The neuro-physiological category was further subdivided into exercise-induced hypoalgesia (EIH), pain sensitization, the autonomic system, the immune system, the endocrine system, and miscellaneous categories. The most frequently hypothesized mechanisms were EIH ( Conclusion: Multiple mechanisms were hypothesized for the positive influence of exercise in people with FM. Future studies using causal analyses, such as mediation analysis, are recommended to validate these mechanisms.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.