• Posted January 17, 2025

These Lifestyle Moves Help Ease Low Back Pain, Study Shows

Suffering from low back pain?

Addressing your unhealthy lifestyle habits could help ease your pain better than traditional care, a new study says.

Back pain sufferers who got lifestyle coaching functioned better and had improved quality of life compared to others who received standard care, researchers report in the study published Jan. 10 in the journal JAMA Network Open.

“Resolving back pain needs to focus on more than the back,” senior investigator Chris Williams, a research fellow with the University of Sydney in Australia, said in a news release.

“Our bodies are not like machines, we are more like ecosystems where lots of factors interact and determine how we work and feel,” Williams continued. “Back pain is no different.”

For the study, nearly 350 people with low back pain were randomly assigned to receive either lifestyle coaching or standard care conducted under existing guidelines.

Physical therapists, dietitians and telephone health coaches helped people assigned to the coaching group figure out which of their lifestyle habits might be making their back pain worse.

These risk factors could include excess weight, lack of physical activity, bad diet, poor sleep, smoking or excessive alcohol use, researchers explained.

For six months, the coaching group was provided support to help them address the factors potentially linked to their back pain.

By the end of the study, people in the lifestyle coaching group had less disability from their back pain than those in the control group, results show.

They’d also lost on average 3.5 pounds more than the group that only got physical therapy, the paper says.

“When someone has back pain that doesn’t get better, they should expect to get comprehensive care about a range of health factors, not just a focus on what’s happening in their spine,” Williams said. “We should shout this message from roof tops.”

The results show that common painkillers and procedures to treat back pain might not be as effective as helping a person grapple with their unhealthy habits, researchers concluded.

"Many people with long-term back pain tell us they feel abandoned, often being referred for high cost and ineffective treatments without being offered recommended treatments that promote self-management,” lead investigator Emma Mudd, a senior research officer with the University of Sydney, said in a news release.

“By shifting the focus to include lifestyle changes and providing simple, supportive interventions, patients feel empowered to take control of their pain,” Mudd said. “This approach not only improves their symptoms but also enhances their overall quality of life."

The researchers said they hope this study will influence future practice guidelines related to low back pain.

“Clinicians treating back pain should consider how they integrate lifestyle support into their day-to-day care,” Williams concluded. “There doesn’t appear to be a right or a wrong way to do this, as long as the patient feels they are being heard, and they are part of the decision making.”

More information

The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons has more on low back pain.

SOURCE: University of Sydney, news release, Jan. 14, 2025