Cut down sedentary time, do walk, brisk exercise to prevent back pain: Study

NEW DELHI: Facing severe back pain? A new study suggests reducing daily sitting time and walking or doing some brisk exercises to prevent back pain from worsening.

Back pain is very common and common reasons include muscle strain, disk damage, and some health conditions, such as scoliosis and osteoporosis.

Doctoral Researcher and Physiotherapist Jooa Norha from the University of Turku in Finland said that people concerned about back health, must "reduce sitting at work or during leisure time"

To understand the link between activity and back pain as well as the mechanisms related to back pain, the researchers included 64 adults with overweight or obesity and metabolic syndrome.

The participants reduced their sitting by 40 minute per day, on average, during the six-month study.

People with back pain tend to have excessive fat deposits within the back muscles. They are also likely to have impaired glucose metabolism, or insulin sensitivity, which can predispose them to pain.

The study did not, however, find a link between "the fattiness or glucose metabolism of the back muscles".

Further, the researchers said that being overweight or obese and having metabolic syndrome not only increases the risk for back pain but also for cardiovascular disease.

Just standing up also may not help, instead "walking or more brisk exercise" may be more beneficial", Norha said.

The researchers also said that switching between postures is more important than only looking for the perfect posture.

According to recent analysis published in the journal Lancet Rheumatology, more than 800 million people will suffer from lower back pain by 2050, a 36 per cent increase from 2020.

The study showed that since 2017, the number of low back pain cases has ticked over to more than half a billion people. In 2020, there were approximately 619 million cases of back pain.