Suffering from your back, do you blame bad weather for all your ailments? Bad idea, according to Australian researchers, because the episodes of acute pain in the lower back are not linked to temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind direction, or precipitation. They conducted a study, published by the journal Arthritis Care & Research, out of 993 patients from a Sydney clinic hospitalized between October 2011 and November 2012.
Data from the Australian Meteorological Office for the same period were cross-referenced with those from patients. Conclusion: the risks of back pain increases slightly with strong gusts of wind, but not enough to be clinically significant.
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“Our results refute old beliefs that certain weather conditions increase the risk of lower back pain”, summarizes Dr. Daniel Steffens, one of the authors of the study, cited by Medical Xpress. “But more research needs to be done on the influence of weather on symptoms of diseases such as fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis.”
Back pain has become a real socio-economic scourge, according to the site “A back for life“from the World Health Organization. One to 2% of the world’s population would be affected each year. Lumbago and sciatica are the leading cause of sick leave for people under 45 years old.
