Discomfort in the lower back is common across all age groups. The Worldwide Burden of Disease Study conducted in 2015 discovered that 7.3 percent of the world's population, or 540 million persons, experienced activity-limiting lower back pain. This makes lower back pain the leading cause of disability on a global scale.
Pain in the lower back is often caused by factors related to one's lifestyle. These include jobs that are strenuous on the body, smoking, being overweight, and not getting enough exercise. In most cases, the cause of lower back discomfort cannot be pinpointed. A number of different conditions, including cancer, a spinal fracture, an infection, or an inflammatory sickness, may cause pain in the lower back.
Sleep Disturbances
The Genome-Wide Association Study, often known as GWAS, examines the genetic material of a large number of people to locate genes that are connected with certain characteristics. Self-reported data and genetic information were gathered from 336,965 GWAS participants by Dr. Ge Luo and colleagues.
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The researchers picked individuals of the GWAS cohort with genetic variants associated with the following types of sleep disruptions to investigate whether sleep problems are the root cause of lower back pain.
- insomnia
- daytime sleepiness
- long sleep duration
- short sleep duration
Mendelian randomization analysis was performed to evaluate the causal influence of sleep disruptions on lower back pain. This statistical analysis showed that sleeplessness might induce lower back pain and vice versa.
They also discovered no link between a genetic tendency to short or lengthy sleep duration and lower back discomfort. Finally, a genetic propensity to lower back discomfort increased daytime drowsiness, but there was no reverse causal association.
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Insomnia & Back Pain
According to the findings of a cross-sectional research including 9,611 people, many previous studies have shown a correlation between lower back pain and short sleep durations, and poor sleep quality.
Another research investigated the quality of sleep and the degree of pain experienced by individuals with more severe back pain. An increase is followed by a lack of quality sleep in the intensity of the discomfort.
Patients who suffer from lower back pain are more likely to have poor sleep quality, although it is uncertain why this occurs. In individuals who suffered from lower back pain, increasing pain intensity was associated with worse sleep quality the next night. This finding indicates that there is a bidirectional link between pain intensity and sleep quality.
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Study Implications
Analgesics are often used in today's world in order to reduce the agony associated with lower back pain. If insomnia is the underlying cause of lower back pain, treating insomnia with medication may help relieve the discomfort.
According to Dr. Jie Sun, a pain expert at Peking University who has examined the bidirectional links between sleep disorders and pain, new treatments are "desperately necessary" for patients who suffer from both sleep disruptions and lower back pain. Dr. Sun has looked into the connections between sleep disorders and pain.
According to Dr. Sun, a more in-depth grasp of "the fundamental principles of how sleep disruption interplays with chronic pain" would lead to "better-directed treatment."
Research suggested a possible causal relationship between insomnia and low back pain based on his findings, which is consistent with the findings of a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies, which found that a decline in sleep quality and quantity was associated with a two- or three-fold increase in the risk of developing a pain condition. His findings suggested a possible causal relationship between insomnia and low back pain.
