If a partner dies or experiences an accident, if one loses a pet, or if one faces financial problems, older men have a higher risk of developing back pain, according to a new study based on an American MrOS cohort.
The MrOS cohort was originally established to study the health of older men, with a focus on osteoporosis and fractures, but the database contains information on various health factors. The database includes data from more than 5,000 men over the age of 65.
The purpose of the study was to determine the association between stressful life events and the development of new lower back pain in older men aged 65 years. 5149 men provided information on whether they had experienced a stressful life event and had lower back pain in the past 12 months before participating in the study. Participants were then followed for a year, during which data related to their lower back pain was recorded three times.
57 % of the participants had experienced at least one stressful life event in the year before the study. The researchers found that those who had experienced a stressful life event had a 39 % higher chance of reporting lower back pain in the year following the event and an 80 % higher chance of reporting pain that limited their daily activities compared to those who had not experienced a stressful life event, even after the researchers adjusted for several other risk factors for developing back pain.
Jan Hartvigsen was involved in publishing the study along with an international research group that includes members of the Chiropractic Academy for Research Leadership (CARL).
Read about the MrOS database: https://mrosonline.ucsf.edu/
Read the research paper