Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Women's Health
Vitamin D Found to Help Back Pain in Women
By Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS, September 9, 2008, abstracted from “Associations Between Vitamin D Status and Pain in Older Adults: The Invecchiare in Chianti Study” in the March 6, 2008 issue the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
With one in five Americans expected to be 65 years or older by 20301, disability is becoming a significant issue, due to the high costs of medical care2. Seven million Americans over 65 years of age are currently disabled and this number is only expected to increase, along with healthcare costs. As a result, strategies aimed at preventing or delaying the onset of disability are “urgently needed”3.
Regular exercise like running4 and lifestyle choices like vitamin intake5 can help maintain overall health. Now a new study6 has found that vitamin D, may help with back pain and disability. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to multiple poor outcomes in older adults, including greater fracture risk7, impaired lower extremity function8, pain(9, 10). It is critically important for the maintenance of bone and muscle health11.
The study involved 958 participants (529 women and 429 men) in the InCHIANTI Study12, a prospective population-based study of the factors that contribute to mobility decline in older Italian adults. They provided information regarding back and lower extremity (hip, knee, and foot) pain, using a numeric scale from 0 to 10 used in previous research13 to rate their level of pain. They also provided blood samples to measure vitamin D levels. Vitamin D deficiency was defined as having blood levels less than 25.0 nanograms per Liter.
The researchers found that women deficient in vitamin D were almost twice as likely to have moderate back pain (greater than “3” on the scale of 0 to 10) with no lower extremity pain than those who were not vitamin D deficient. No relationship between vitamin D and back pain was seen in men.
For the researchers, low vitamin D status was associated with significant back pain in older women but not men” and that “these findings argue strongly for [surveying] older adults about their pain and potentially screening older women with significant back pain for vitamin D deficiency.”
Note: The data used in this study was collected from 1998-2000.
Greg Arnold is a Chiropractic Physician practicing in Danville, CA. You can contact Dr. Arnold directly by emailing him at mailto:PitchingDoc@msn.com or visiting his web site at www.CompleteChiropracticHealthcare.com
Reference:
1 DeBarros KA. 65+ in the United States: current population reports. US Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Commerce website.
2 Guralnik JM, Alecxih L, Branch LG, Wiener JM. Medical and long-term care costs when older persons become more dependent. Am J Public Health. 2002;92:1244-1245
3 Walston JD, Interventions on Frailty Working Group. Designing randomized, controlled trials aimed at preventing or delaying functional decline and disability in frail, older persons: a consensus report. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2004;52:625-634
4 Chakravaty EF. Reduced Disability and Mortality Among Aging Runners: A 21-Year Longitudinal Study. Arch Intern Med. 2008;168(15):1638-1646
5 Benedetta B. Low Micronutrient Levels as a Predictor of Incident Disability in Older Women. Arch Int Med 2006; 166(21): 2335-2340
6 Hicks GE. Associations Between Vitamin D Status and Pain in Older Adults: The Invecchiare in Chianti Study. Jou Am Ger Soc 2008; 56(5): 785-791
7 Bischoff-Ferrari HA, Willett WC, Wong JB et al. Fracture prevention with vitamin D supplementation: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. JAMA 2005;293:2257–2264
8 Bischoff-Ferrari HA, Dietrich T, Orav EJ et al. Higher 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations are associated with better lower-extremity function in both active and inactive persons aged >or=60 y. Am J Clin Nutr 2004;80:752–758
9 Al Faraj S, Al Mutairi K. Vitamin D deficiency and chronic low back pain in Saudi Arabia. Spine 2003;28:177–179
10 Gloth FM III, Lindsay JM, Zelesnick LB et al. Can vitamin D deficiency produce an unusual pain syndrome? Arch Intern Med 1991;151:1662–1664
11 Gerdhem P, Ringsberg KA, Obrant KJ et al. Association between 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels, physical activity, muscle strength and fractures in the prospective population-based OPRA Study of Elderly Women. Osteoporos Int 2005;16:1425–1431
12 Ferrucci L, Bandinelli S, Benvenuti E et al. Subsystems contributing to the decline in ability to walk: Bridging the gap between epidemiology and geriatric practice in the InCHIANTI study. J Am Geriatr Soc 2000;48:1618–1625
13 Taylor LJ, Harris J, Epps CD et al. Psychometric evaluation of selected pain intensity scales for use with cognitively impaired and cognitively intact older adults. Rehabil Nurs 2005;30:55–61