Author Archives: PainRelief.com

Study Demonstrates Impact of Lifestyle Habits on Low Back Pain

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Christopher Williams PhD
University Centre for Rural Health
School of Health Sciences
University of Sydney, Lismore
Research and Knowledge Translation Directorate
Mid North Coast Local Health District,
Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Other research has linked unhealthy lifestyle habits to low back pain (such as being inactive, overweight, smoking and consuming a poor diet, or too much to low back pain). However, until our study we didn’t know if changing these lifestyle habits led to improvements in a person’s back pain disability.

PainRelief.com: What are the main findings?

Response: Our clinical trial found that focusing care on lifestyle had a slightly bigger impact on back pain related disability, weight, and quality of life compared to the current recommended physiotherapy treatment for back pain (advice to stay active and exercise). The results show that helping people understand how lifestyle habits contribute to back pain and supporting them to make changes to these habits is better than the current recommended care.

PainRelief.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: Managing back pain is about more than the (bio)mechanics of what is going on in your spine. There are lots of things that may affect how your back feels. Lifestyle factors – activity, nutrition, weight, smoking or alcohol use, and sleep – are some of those things. Any person dealing with back pain should expect to get some help to figure out how their lifestyle habits can improve their back pain, as part of a comprehensive back pain management plan.

PainRelief.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?

Response: There are many ways to support lifestyle changes related to back pain. We aren’t quite sure which are the best for different people, and the best way to support people with pain make such changes. For example, while digital or virtual ways of accessing care seem promising, we aren’t sure if these are more or less effective/cost effectives as traditional ‘in-person’ models of care.

Disclosures: The study was supported by funding the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

Citation: Mudd E, Davidson SRE, Kamper SJ, et al. Healthy Lifestyle Care vs Guideline-Based Care for Low Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2025;8(1):e2453807. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.53807

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2828920

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Study Identifies Link Between Depression and Menstrual Pain

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Prof. John Moraros Ph.D.
Dean, Department of Biological Sciences, School of Science
Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Suzhou, Jiangsu, China;
Institute of Population Health
University of Liverpool
Liverpool, United Kingdom

Prof. John Moraros Ph.D. Dean, Department of Biological Sciences, School of Science Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Suzhou, Jiangsu, China; Institute of Population Health University of Liverpool Liverpool, United Kingdom

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Across the world, women are twice as likely as men to experience depression, often with more severe physical symptoms. This difference is especially noticeable during their reproductive years and affects hundreds of millions of women. While links between mental and reproductive health are known, they are not fully understood.

In our study, we wanted to figure out the relationship and directionality between depression and menstrual pain (dysmenorrhea). It is kind of like trying to solve a very complex puzzle. Instead of doing experiments directly on people, we used a clever approach called Mendelian Randomization. This method works like nature’s experiment. It uses genetic data, like tiny instructions in our DNA, to see if having certain genes linked to depression also makes people more likely to have menstrual pain. This helps us find patterns and identify cause-and-effect without the need to test it directly on people. It is like looking for clues to see how the pieces of this complex puzzle all fit together.

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Review Finds Spinal Cord Stimulation Effective for Reducing Back and Leg Pain

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Prof. Dr. Frank Huygen
Erasmus Medical Center
Rotterdam, the Netherlands

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is a widely accepted therapy for people who have chronic pain that has been difficult to treat with conventional medical management (CMM) such as analgesics, physical therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Yet despite its clinical success, there is still debate about aspects of SCS therapy.

This systemic review and network meta-analysis aimed to improve upon prior evidence reviews by including more up to date randomized clinical trial data and using more advanced analytical methods. We evaluated the efficacy associated with SCS, including modern RCTs that compared novel forms of SCS compared to traditional SCS, or compared with CMM.

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Cleveland Clinic Study Finds Virtual Yoga Effective Way to Manage Chronic Low Back Pain, with Added Benefit of Flexibility

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Hallie Tankha, Ph.D., Research faculty
Department of Wellness and Preventive Medicine 
Cleveland Clinic, and first author of the study

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Numerous studies have highlighted the benefits of yoga for individuals with chronic low back pain, including reductions in pain intensity, improvements in daily functioning (such as walking or climbing stairs), and better sleep quality. However, these studies used in-person yoga sessions. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare delivery had to adapt quickly, and yoga was no exception. As virtual healthcare options continue to expand, this led us to wonder: could virtual yoga offer the same benefits as in-person classes for chronic low back pain?

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Study Finds Back Pain May Be Eased by Reduced Sitting

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Jooa Norha, MSc (Health Sciences), PT
Doctoral researcher
Turku PET Centre
University of Turku, Finland

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?  What are the main findings?

Response: The previous evidence linking sedentary behavior (or sitting to simplify) and back pain is surprisingly scarce. Therefore, we wanted to investigate whether reducing sitting could help with back pain among adults who sit for major parts of the day. And indeed, we did find that reducing sitting for about 40 min/day for six months kept back pain from worsening.

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Yale Study Evaluates Long-Term Use of Muscle Relaxant Medications for Chronic Pain

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Benjamin Oldfield, MD MHS
Vice President of Clinical Affairs
Program in Addiction Medicine
Department of Medicine
Yale School of Medicine
New Fair Haven Community Health Care
New Haven, Connecticut

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Stricter opioid prescribing guidelines have been associated with more prescriptions of other (non-opioid) classes of medicines for pain, and particularly for chronic pain. Muscle relaxant medications (a class of medications that includes, for example, cyclobenzaprine, tizanidine, and others) have gotten very popular in the last several years.

By some measures, prescriptions for this class of medicines doubled between 2005 and 2016, and physician visits for continuing muscle relaxant medications tripled during the same period. However, this class of medications is generally indicated for acute pain, in short courses (not for chronic pain, in longer courses). So, we set out to analyze all the literature to ask—what is the safety and efficacy of this class of medications for chronic pain, in longer courses (1 month or more)?

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Mass General Study Evaluates AI Models of Pain Management For Racial, Ethnic or Sex Bias

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Marc D. Succi, MD
Strategic Innovation Leader | Mass General Brigham Innovation
Associate Chair of Innovation & Commercialization | Mass General Brigham Enterprise Radiology
Co-Director, Innovator Growth Division, Mass General Brigham Innovation
Attending Radiologist | Mass General Emergency Radiology 
Assistant Professor of Radiology | Harvard Medical School
Executive Director, Mass General Brigham MESH Incubator

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: This study investigates whether large language models (LLMs), such as GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini, introduce racial, ethnic, or sex-based bias when recommending opioid treatments for pain management. Existing literature highlights racial disparities in pain treatment, with Black patients often receiving less aggressive pain management compared to White patients.

LLMs, as AI tools trained on large datasets, may either perpetuate these biases or help standardize treatment across diverse patient groups. This study analyzed hundreds of real-world patient cases, representing various pain conditions, to assess if race, ethnicity, or sex influenced the LLMs’ opioid treatment recommendations.

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NEJM: Trial of A Monoclonal Antibody to PACAP for Migraine Prevention

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Professor Messoud Ashina, MD, PhD, DMSc
Department of Neurology and Danish Headache Center
Glostrup Hospital
University of Copenhagen, Glostrup
Copenhagen, Denmark

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Background and Main Findings: Current migraine treatments targeting CGRP aren’t fully effective for everyone. PACAP is another key molecule implicated in migraine and can trigger migraine attacks. Lu AG09222, an antibody that blocks PACAP, has shown promise in reducing migraine days in a phase 2a trial.

Effects Duration: 4 weeks.

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Mindfulness-Based Interventions Delivered via Telehealth Improved Pain and Well-Being Among People with Chronic Pain

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Diana Burgess, PhD
Director of the VA Advanced Fellowship Program in Health Services Research
CCDOR: Center for Care Delivery and Outcomes Research
Director of the VA QUERI Complementary and Integrative Health Evaluation Center (CIHEC)
Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Mindfulness is being aware and paying attention in a kind, non-judgmental way, to what is happening in the present moment. Mindfulness-based interventions teach people mindfulness skills, through a variety of practices, such as meditation and mindful movement. Although mindfulness interventions are evidence-based treatment for chronic pain and conditions that often accompany pain, like anxiety and depression, many MBIs are difficult to implement at scale in healthcare systems as they require trained mindfulness instructors, dedicated space and pose barriers to patients due to the time commitment involved. We wanted to develop MBIs that were relatively low resource, scalable and more accessible for patients. 

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Study Finds Sex Bias in Pain Management in Emergency Departments

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Mika Guzikevits
Doctoral Student
Prof. Choshen-Hillel’s Decision-Making lab
School of Business Administration & Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality 
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Although pain is one of the most common reasons for seeking medical help, providing adequate treatment can be challenging due to its subjective nature. When healthcare providers’ pain management decisions rely on subjective judgment, they are susceptible to biases.

PainRelief.com: What are the main findings?

Response: Our study, which analyzed over 21,000 patient records from the United States and Israel, found a significant sex bias in pain management at emergency departments. We found that female patients are consistently less likely to receive pain relief prescriptions compared to male patients with similar complaints (around 10% difference). This bias persists across different ages, pain levels, and physician sex, indicating a systemic issue. Female patients’ pain scores are less frequently recorded, and they spend more time in the emergency department than male patients. In a controlled experiment involving 109 nurses, we found that pain was rated as less intense if the patient was said to be female rather than male, which supports our hypothesis that healthcare providers are susceptible to stereotypical beliefs about women’s pain and expect them to act “hysterically” and exaggerate their pain reports.

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