Chronic back pain ‘more likely among smokers’

Smokers are three times more likely than nonsmokers to develop chronic back pain, according to a study from Northwestern University.

Published in the medical journal Human Brain Mapping, the research was the first to link smoking and chronic pain with the part of the brain associated with addiction and reward. It followed a longitudinal observational study of 160 adults with new cases of back pain.

Neural patterns linked with addictive behaviour and motivated learning were shown to be strong and active in the brains of smokers, which was reduced when subjects voluntarily gave up smoking – thus also reducing their vulnerability to chronic pain.

Bogdan Petre, lead author of the study and a technical scientist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said: "Smoking affects the brain. We found that it affects the way the brain responds to back pain and seems to make individuals less resilient to an episode of pain."

Back pain is a common problem that affects most people at some point in their life. It is not generally caused by a serious condition and, in most cases, it gets better within 12 weeks.