Consistent pattern between physical activity measures and chronic pain levels: the Tromsø Study 2015 to 2016

Abstract

Epidemiological literature on the relationship between physical activity and chronic pain is scarce and inconsistent. Hence, our aim was to assess the relationship applying comprehensive methodology, including self-reported and accelerometer measures of physical activity and different severity levels of chronic pain. We used data from the Tromsø Study (2015Study ( -2016. All residents in the municipality, aged 40 years and older were invited to participate (n 5 32,591, 51% women). A total of 21,083 (53%) women reported on questionnaires. Additionally, 6778 participants (54% women) were invited to wear accelerometers (6125 with complete measurements). Our exposure measures were self-reported leisure time physical activity, exercise frequency, duration, and intensity and 2 accelerometer measures (steps per day and minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day). Outcome measurements were chronic pain and moderateto-severe chronic pain. We used Poisson regression to estimate chronic pain prevalence and prevalence ratios for each physical activity measure, with adjustments for sex, age, education level, smoking history, and occupational physical activity. Our main analyses showed an inverse dose-response relationship between all physical activity measures and both severity measures of chronic pain, except that the dose-response relationship with exercise duration was only found for moderate-to-severe pain. All findings were stronger for the moderate-to-severe pain outcomes than for chronic pain. Robustness analyses gave similar results as the main analyses. We conclude that an inverse dose-response association between physical activity and chronic pain is consistent across measures. To summarize, higher levels of physical activity is associated with less chronic pain and moderate-to-severe chronic pain.

Association between the Number of Days/Week of Different Levels of Physical Activity and Chronic Pain in People of Different Races: A Mendelian Randomization Study

“…The reason for this result may be ethnic differences in endogenous pain regulatory mechanisms, and the types of moderate and vigorous activity are different among different racial populations [29]; thus, a higher number of days/week with ≥10 min of moderate and vigorous physical activity has a negative impact on CP in Europeans. Our results showing that physical activity is beneficial for African Americans and Afro-Caribbean individuals coincide with studies showing that physical activity reduces chronic pain [45][46][47]. However, with the frequent economic and cultural interaction of the world, the migration of people today has produced ancestral variation between populations and on the genome within individuals [48].…”

Factors important for health-related quality of life in men and women: The population based SCAPIS study

“…However, future studies should focus on evaluating what type of physical activity would be most beneficial for HRQOL and well-being, especially in people who may already have some physical limitations due to co-morbidities. Our findings on the importance of pain also align with our findings of the importance of physical activity, which can be used as prevention against pain [32], but also against early retirement and sick leave, which were important within the employment factor. With our study's findings in mind, we suggest a research focus on the prevention of pain in and before (throughout life) in middle age to increase the chances of a life free from pain in later ages.…”

Body movement as a biomarker for use in chronic pain rehabilitation: An embedded analysis of an RCT of a virtual reality solution for adults with chronic pain

“…Previous research in patients with CLBP have shown that motor and problem-solving skill exercises work well in improving cognitive impairment ( 21 – 23 ). Furthermore, increased activity has shown to correlate negatively with the chronic pain, and the movement velocity has shown to correlate with functional recovery in chronic pain ( 24 , 25 ). Thus, we used an assumption that the time spent on a given activity correlates with the condition of a participant, i.e., a healthy participant would finish the activities faster than a participant with CLBP.…”