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By Amy Norton
SAN FRANCISCO, Mar 02 (Reuters Health) - What's bad for the heart may also be bad for the back, new research shows. In a study spanning more than a half century, researchers have found that smoking, high cholesterol and high blood pressure may each increase the risk of lower back problems.
According to a team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, the findings support the so-called "vascular hypothesis" for how some cases of low back pain arise. This theory holds that when a person's arteries are clogged, the blood supply to the lower spine is diminished, which in turn causes spinal disks to degenerate, Dr. Nicholas U. Ahn explained in an interview with Reuters Health.
The research findings were presented here at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.
The investigators analyzed medical data collected on more than 1,300 Hopkins medical school graduates for up to 52 years. They found that smoking, high cholesterol and high blood pressure were each independently linked to a higher risk of lower back problems. Overall, graduates with a history of smoking were 25% more likely than nonsmokers to develop chronic low pain. And they were 84% more likely to develop degenerative disk disease in the lumbar spine.
The risks linked to unhealthy cholesterol and blood pressure levels were less significant: Individuals with high blood pressure were 50% more likely to suffer disk degeneration in the lower spine, while those with high cholesterol had a 17% increase in their risk for the back problem.
The belief that some back pain is connected to smoking, high cholesterol and other habits or conditions that impair blood flow in the arteries is not new, Ahn noted. However, he said, these findings are "by far, the most powerful" so far in favor of the theory. He and his colleagues are looking into whether having multiple risk factors for artery disease may further increase the risk for lower back woes.
It may be, according to Ahn, that many of the same things that are hard on the heart also weigh heavily on the back.
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