Can Losing Weight Help With Lower Back Pain

We know that people do not like to hear that their joint and back pain problems are made worse by abdominal obesity and that they “need to lose weight.” Losing weight is not an easy thing to do and in many cases will lead to greater frustration on the patient’s part. We do see patients who tell us that they have been lectured for years to get rid of that big belly. Clearly lecturing is not motivation. In this article, we will give you the science of how obesity works to give you back pain. We hope that you will see how your back pain is made worse in a different light beyond any gimmicky type article which suggests “8 easy to lose weight and reduce back pain.” If they were that easy you would have lost the weight by now.

The evidence is mounting that when you wake up in the morning with back pain and numbness extending into your feet, that your belly is A if not THE culprit of your problems.

But the evidence is mounting that when you wake up in the morning with that back pain, with that numbness extending into your feet, that your belly is A if not THE culprit in your problems. The goal of this article is to help provide you with reliable information that will make you look down and look at your belly and realize that a big belly is not your friend and for some, will cause you to lose your independence.

Did Losing Weight Help Your Lower Back Pain?

Research: There is a link between a big belly and back pain. Common sense: There is a link between a big belly and back pain

Let’s look at the last ten years of research to understand the debate in the medical community of the role of abdominal obesity and back pain.

Researchers at the Medical University of Graz in Austria conducted a study that lasted over 35 years. (1) They followed patients throughout their lives to determine what impact abdominal obesity had on their back pain and general health. Here is what 35 years of research revealed:

Here's How Your Weight Affects Your Sciatica Pain: The Spine Institute Of Southeast Texas: Orthopedic Surgeons

Note: When someone comes into one of our clinics, one of the greatest fears they have is the loss of independence, loss of mobility, and the need to depend on others to help them get around. The evidence is clear, people rid themselves of these fears when they embark on a program to get rid of their big belly.

For many people, it would seem obvious, a large belly is putting mechanical stress on the spine and that is the cause of back problems.

When there is back pain and there are problems of being sedentary, you have to move or the problems will accelerate. Big belly causes stress and mechanical load in a bad back – weight loss is very good in many cases

Can Orthotics Help With Lower Back Pain And Sciatica?

Above we discussed a research study that suggested that the problem of big belly and back pain was more frequent in women. We are going to look at another study that helps explain why. Breast size and a big belly are not a good combination for women fearful of hunchback.

. (4) Look at all the things that happen to obese women and the factors that can lead to the hunchback formation. Yes, it is all about obesity. Here are the learning points of this study:

“This study investigated the effects of obesity on breast size, thoracic spine structure and function, upper torso musculoskeletal pain and physical activity participation in women living independently in the community.”

Will Losing Weight Help With Back Pain?

It should be obvious that if you carry a big belly and you have low back pain you are at higher risk for disability. But what if you are the owner of a landscaping company, a building contractor, anything that requires you to be on the worksite? Many of the people that fit this description that we see at our center are stuck in a repetitive cycle of self-managed treatments.

Neuropathic pain not from musculoskeletal damage was higher in overweight and obese patients. In other words, the weight is causing the pain whether you hurt your back or not

There have been many studies that suggest that it is not the physical load of carrying the extra weight that is causing back pain in obese and overweight patients, but inflammation caused by excess fat changing the body environment to that of chronic inflammation.  Please see our article: Excessive weight and joint pain – the inflammation connection.

Lower Back Stretches To Reduce Pain And Improve Mobility

Now researchers are suggesting a relationship between neuropathic pain and obesity with an inflammation connection. In a paper from the University of Tokyo, doctors made these observations:

Pain in your back was clearly made worse by carrying a belly load. Now add to that pain made worse by high blood sugar

Found that nerve sensory thresholds were metabolically altered which could lead to future clinical neuropathy. (8) What was suspected of metabolically altering the spinal nerves? Hyperinsulinemia and insulin sensitivity. 

Understanding The Connection Between Obesity And Back Pain

 examined obese laboratory animals and found that obesity causes inflammatory osteoarthritis. The inflammation attacking the joints of the animals was caused by a high fat/high sugar diet. (9)

, who suggested that the rising prevalence of hand osteoarthritis is from obesity and since the hand does not bear weight, this suggests that the role of systemic inflammatory mediators in fat cells cause inflammation signaling to be sent out and attack joints. (10)

, researchers examined the effect that obesity has on patients managed for symptomatic lumbar disc herniation. They studied a group of patients who underwent back surgery and a group of patients who had more conservative non-surgical treatments. Both groups showed significantly less improvement as it related to problems of obesity. (12)

Weight Loss Can Reduce Back Pain

The same was found in newer research from St. Olavs University Hospital, in Norway for patients having surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis. The researchers noted: “Obese patients were less likely to achieve a minimal clinically important difference.”(13)

In February 2017, researchers at Cornell, Clemson, the University of Georgia, and Xi’an Jiaotong University in China, completed a study which found that :

Said that a component of failed spinal surgery was obesity. This recent research was the first to examine obesity’s role in recurrent disc herniation after spinal surgery.

How Yoga Can Help On Your Weight Loss Journey

“Obesity was a strong and independent predictor of recurrent (disc herniation) after lumbar microdiscectomy. Surgeons should incorporate weight-loss counseling into their preoperative discussions with patients.”(15)

 that elevated cholesterol levels and triglycerides have a role: “patients with symptomatic herniated lumbar disc showed statistically significant higher triglyceride concentration and total cholesterol concentration. Serum lipid levels may be a risk factor for [symptomatic disc herniation]. An enhanced understanding of these factors holds the promise of new approaches to the prevention and management.”(16)

Any procedure that offers a patient relief of their symptoms is a good procedure. But how much risk should a patient take and for how much relief?

Weight Loss And Exercise For Patients

The question of how obese patients respond to surgery as compared to non-obese patients was tackled by doctors at the Department of Neurosurgery, the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In this September 2017 study, the doctors looked at obese and non-obese patients treated with lumbar laminectomy for symptomatic lumbar spinal stenosis.

The researchers concluded: “obese patients with symptomatic lumbar spinal stenosis may require longer to recover after decompression but can expect to reach equivalent outcomes of similarly treated (non-obese) patients”(17)

(Neurosurgery) write off the growing evidence that connects the metabolic processes within the adipose tissue, preferentially abdominal fat, with a low-intensity chronic inflammatory state that causes back pain.

Do's And Don'ts Of Exercising With Lower Back Pain Symptoms

They suggest: Some meta-analyses have confirmed an increase of complications following lumbar spine surgery (mainly infections and venous thrombosis) in obese subjects.

However, functional outcomes after lumbar spine surgery are favorable although inferior to the non-obese population, acknowledging that obese patients present with worse baseline function levels and the prognosis of conservatively treated obese cohorts is much worse. (18)

For obese and non-obese patients pain and functional outcome are similar to non-obese patients. So if the surgery failed, it was not the fault of the obesity.

Lower Back Pain: Duration, Treatment, And Recovery

Need help beyond weight loss? Prolotherapy is an in-office injection treatment that research and medical studies have shown to be an effective, trustworthy, reliable alternative to surgical and non-effective conservative care treatments. In our opinion, based on research and clinical results,  H3 Prolotherapy (H3 is a type of Prolotherapy named after three of its leading physician innovators Hackett-Hemwall-Hauser) is superior to many other treatments in relieving the problems of chronic joint and spine pain and, most importantly, in getting people back to a happy and active lifestyle.

If you have questions about back pain and how we may be able to help you, please contact us and get help and information from our Caring Medical staff.

1 Großschädl F, Freidl W, Rásky É, Burkert N, Muckenhuber J, Stronegger WJ. A 35-year trend analysis for back pain in Austria: the role of obesity. PloS one. 2014 Sep 10;9(9):e107436.[Google Scholar]

How To Sleep With Lower Back Pain: Finding Comfort And Relief

2 Jentzsch T, Geiger J, Slankamenac K, Werner CM.Obesity measured by outer abdominal fat may cause facet joint arthritis at the lumbar spine. J Back Musculoskelet Rehabil. 2014 Jun 24.[Google Scholar.]

3 Hajihosseinali M, Arjmand N, Shirazi-Adl A. Effect of body weight on spinal loads in various activities: a personalized biomechanical modeling approach. Journal of biomechanics. 2015 Jan 21;48(2):276-82.[Google Scholar]

4 Steele JR, Coltman CE, McGhee

Fast And Effective Back Pain Home Remedies