Low back pain can be promoted by sleep disorders like insomnia, and vice versa, according to a new Chinese study. Having better quality sleep could therefore help to better prevent and treat chronic back pain.
- More than half of the French population has had at least one episode of back pain in the last twelve months.
- The French sleep less than seven hours a night on average. According to Public Health France, chronic insomnia affects 13% of 18-75 year olds.
- There is a false belief: “lumbago = rest”. However, according to the recommendations, maintaining and/or quickly returning to an activity is strongly encouraged from the onset of the pain, to promote healing.
4 out of 5 French people suffer from lumbago, back pain in the lower part of the spine, during their lifetime according to health insurance. However, it is often difficult to determine the origin of low back pain, despite its seriousness and its potential impact on the daily life of those concerned.
In the past, some studies have been able to find associations between lower back pain and different factors such as gender, body weight, tobacco consumption and mood disorders. More recent research has observed a link between low back pain and sleep disorders including insomnia, but this link was still uncertain.
Improving sleep quality could prevent lower back pain
Researchers from the Faculty of Medicine at Zhejiang University in China wanted to take this research further, trying to better understand the relationship between sleep and lower back pain. their discoveries, published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, confirm this link between insomnia and lower back pain, one potentially causing the other. Improving sleep could therefore participate in the prevention and treatment of low back pain.
The researchers looked at data from over 400,000 people of European descent, collected by the British Biobank. The latter had carried out genetic tests and answered a series of questions about their sleep habits. The researchers’ analyzes focused on different factors associated with poor sleep quality, including insomnia, long sleep duration, short sleep duration and daytime sleepiness.
Back pain and insomnia: the link between the two is confirmed by this study
According to the study authors, their findings showed a “bidirectional causal relationship” between insomnia and lower back pain, meaning that insomnia can cause lower back pain and vice versa. They also discovered that lower back pain can cause daytime sleepiness.
In the future, these results could inspire further studies and promote the exploration of therapeutic interventions for lower back pain that also target insomnia and unhealthy sleep patterns.
