{
  "id": 17247936,
  "title": "Fitness level, but not sex, affects exercise-induced pain modulation",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/30/fitness-level-but-not-sex-affects-exercise-induced-pain-modulation",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-10-30T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "eLife",
    "slug": "elife",
    "url": "https://elifesciences.org/articles/109061"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A previous study by the researchers (Nold et al., 2025) explored how exercise-induced pain modulation is affected by sex, fitness level, and drug treatment. They found that males experienced increased pain tolerance after high-intensity exercise, which decreased when a certain drug was introduced. However, this effect was not observed in females. These findings prompted further research to understand if and how much exercise-induced pain modulation is influenced by fitness level and/or sex.\n\nIn this current study, the researchers focused on a group of all-female participants with high fitness levels (N=21) and examined the impact of exercise intensity and stimulus intensity on heat pain. Their results revealed an interaction between exercise intensity and stimulus intensity, indicating greater pain relief after high-intensity exercise, particularly at the highest stimulus intensity. Although pressure pain ratings did not reach statistical significance, a similar pattern was observed. These findings suggest that high-fitness females also exhibit exercise-induced pain modulation when engaging in high-intensity exercise compared to low-intensity exercise.\n\nMoreover, the researchers combined the data from the current study with the previous one, which demonstrated that both fitness level and sex do not moderate exercise-induced pain modulation in heat pain. These findings support the notion that exercise-induced pain modulation is primarily influenced by fitness level, rather than sex.",
  "summary": "In a previous study by our group (Nold et al., 2025), we investigated exercise-induced pain modulation after high-intensity compared to low-intensity exercise in a heterogeneous sample of diverse fitness levels. Exploratory analyses suggested an interaction of sex, fitness level, and drug treatment, indicating that males showed increasing hypoalgesia after high- compared to low-intensity exercise…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}