Shocking Recent Study Showing Neck Pain and Back Pain Is Associated With An Early Death

People with low back pain have a 13% higher risk of dying of any cause, according to study.

Researchers in Australia looked at the relationship between back pain and/or neck pain impacted all cause and disease related cardiovascular deaths.

Chronic back pain and chronic neck pain are very common… and it’s getting more common all the time.

Current mainstream medical treatment for these conditions is usually not effective for chronic spinal pain.

One of the reasons for the increasing incidence is an increase in the average age of our population. Lead researcher, Matthew Fernandez of the Faculty of Health Sciences, talks about this in a news release.

“With a rapidly growing aging population, spinal health is critical in maintaining older age independence, highlighting the importance of spinal pain in primary health care as a presenting symptom.”

The researchers found people with spinal pain had a very significant increased risk of all cause mortality.

One of the researchers talks about possible reasons for this concerning finding.

“Spinal pain may be part of a pattern of poor health and poor functional ability, which increases mortality risk in the older population,” according to Paulo Ferreira, PhD, associate professor and physiotherapy researcher at the University’s Faculty of Health Sciences.

“Policy makers should be aware that back pain is a serious issue. It is an indicator of people’s poor health and should be screened for, particularly in the elderly.”

Older people with spinal pain had a 13% higher risk of mortality per years lived in this study.

It’s not that spinal pain caused an early death.

It’s that spinal pain tells us that there is something wrong. The spine and nervous system are dysfunctional otherwise there wouldn’t be pain.

This spinal and neurological dysfunction often causes abnormal movements, losses of balance, reduced physical activity, and more.

The older individual with pain will generally be less active which results in losses of muscle mass, bone mass (osteoporosis), and cardiovascular health. This increases probability of injury.

Changes in activity, abnormal movement patterns, and balance problems can set up a situation where the person may fall which is a leading cause of death in the elderly.

There are many other factors that are likely influencing the findings of this research.

The reality is that we have to stop looking at our bodies as a bunch of separate parts.

Health and wellness requires looking at everything to see how our entire body functions.

In this simple example demonstrated in the research above, we see an early death associated with neck pain and back pain.

If we have a symptom, we have already lost health to varying degrees. This is true even if the symptom goes away when we take a medicine.

Returning to the problem with neck pain and back pain… so many different problems can cause this.

Medical treatment of these problems is generally not that effective for so many people.

In the case of pain relievers, opiates, and even over the counter pain relievers there is reason to be concerned about their use particularly over time.

This, pain relief, is what we do very, very well as Chiropractors.

This is one of the things that we’ve helped so many Texarkana area residents with at our Texarkana Clinic but it’s not by taking a pill… the improvement takes place because we improve function which is improving health.

There’s more to Chiropractic than pain relief.

At Hagebusch Chiropractic, we really look at the cause of the problem and work to improve this rather than just treating pain and that’s what makes the biggest difference for so many people that come see us in Texarkana.