If you suffer from back pain, you may be interested to know how it has been linked to an earlier death rate<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A new study from Boston Medical Center studied 8,000 people with back problems between 40 and 80 years old for an average of 14 years. They started by taking baseline measurements to determine how bad the participants pain was, then followed up every other year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The participants were either observed doing everyday activities or asked about them, and some had such severe pain that it was hard for them to prepare meals, walk or engage in any repetitive movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than half the participants died during the follow-up period. Nearly 65% of those who experienced frequent persistent pain had died, but only 54% of those without pain had died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, what\u2019s the link? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBack [problems] may directly impair daily activities, but older adults could inappropriately avoid them due to fear of re-injury or worsening of symptoms,\u201d explains Eric Roseen, the lead author of the study. \u201cBeing unable to perform, or avoiding, daily activities could lead to weight gain, development or progression of other chronic health conditions, and ultimately earlier death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The researchers believe that, in light of their findings,\noptimizing physical health to help older adults live longer should be a public\nhealth priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur findings raise the question of whether better management of pain across the lifespan could prevent disability, improve quality of life and ultimately extend life,\u201d says Roseen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, approximately 80% of adults deal with back problems at some point. It\u2019s one of the main causes of missed work days and disability. The risk factors for back problems range from weight gain and obesity to posture, age and a sedentary lifestyle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For people with back pain, it’s important to understand why there’s a link to a higher mortality rate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[690],"tags":[912,926,719],"class_list":["post-13173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellness","tag-back-pain","tag-back-problems","tag-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}