Umbrella review finds small pain relief from exercise for osteoarthritis but has major limits
Feb 23rd 2026
A new overview of reviews and trials reports modest pain reductions from exercise for knee, hip, and hand osteoarthritis but no clear function benefits, and several methodological limitations mean the results should not prompt stopping exercise.
- Researchers pooled about 128 studies involving roughly 13,000 people across systematic reviews and recent trials.
- Exercise reduced pain by about 6 to 12 points on a 100 point scale compared to doing nothing or placebo.
- Exercise did not improve function more than doing nothing or placebo in the pooled analyses.
- For knee and hip osteoarthritis, exercise reduced pain about as much as NSAIDs and corticosteroid injections, which showed roughly 5 to 10 percent pain reductions.
- The review found joint replacement produced larger pain and function improvements than exercise for knee and hip osteoarthritis.
- Major limitations include combining all exercise types, mixing supervised and unsupervised programs, short follow up periods, and not accounting for exercise dose or baseline severity.
- Clinically, even modest pain reductions can matter, and exercise also offers broader cardiovascular, mental health, and weight management benefits, so continuing an appropriate, consistent program remains advisable.