Effects of age, gender and modifiable risk factors on low back pain

Abstract

Low back pain increases with age and causes a burden of serious socio-economic adverse outcomes. Gender, age, vitamin D insufficiency, and obesity are some of the factors that are considered accountable for the etiology of low back pain, however, conflicting results are present in the literature regarding their effects on low back pain. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effect of pain duration, pain intensity, gender, and preventable risk factors including vitamin D and body mass index (BMI), on low back pain. File registration data of 274 patients (211 females, 63 males) were included in this retrospective study. Age, gender, pain intensity, BMI, and vitamin D levels were recorded. Patients aged 60 and over were considered as the geriatric group. We observed that higher Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) scores were significantly associated with increased BMI (p=0.007) and advanced age (p=0.049). Duration of pain was positively correlated with, age (p<0.001) and BMI (p=0.02). There was no significant relation between VAS scores and vitamin D levels. The duration of the disease was longer in women than men (p=0.038), but no significant difference was observed for VAS scores between genders. When the study group was divided into geriatric and non-geriatric groups, disease duration was higher in the geriatric group (p<0.001), but no significant difference was observed between VAS scores. BMI, which is among the modifiable risk factors, is closely related to low back pain. The increase in both BMI and VAS scores, especially with advancing age, indicates that overweight older individuals are at high risk for low back pain.