High dietary inflammatory index may be associated with low back pain
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Results presented at the Association of Academic Physiatrists Annual Meeting showed that a pro-inflammatory diet may be associated with the prevalence of low back pain.
Using the dietary inflammatory index, Valerio Tonelli Enrico, PT, MSCE, and colleagues examined diet and health data among 3,966 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey database. Researchers used logistic regression models to assess the association between low back pain, dietary inflammatory index score and other covariates.
“The question that was asked to this population was if they have had pain in the previous 3 months to the survey, and the pain had to be a pain that was lasting for at least 24 hours, so not any minor pain,” Tonelli Enrico, a PhD student at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Science at the University of Pittsburgh, told Healio Orthopedics.
Univariate logistic analysis showed a significant association between dietary inflammatory index scores with the prevalence of low back pain, which was maintained in the adjusted analysis. When compared with the lowest dietary inflammatory index quintile, researchers found patients in quintiles two through five had a significantly higher odds of having low back pain. Patients in the fifth quintile of the dietary inflammatory index had 42.4% higher odds of having low back pain vs. patients in the lowest quintile, according to results. Researchers also noted patients had a higher chance of experiencing low back pain in quintiles two through four compared with those in the first quintile.
“For at least a portion of the population of patients with low back pain, their diet could be significantly contributing to what is going on,” Tonelli Enrico said. “I understand that we cannot determine causality because this is a cross-sectional design, so clearly this is an initial assessment. But, even keeping this in mind, I think that we should consider that certain diets may contribute to some pain syndromes. Given that this is a broad statement on a complex topic, I think there is a lot more research that needs to be done to back it up.”
Reference:
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Tonelli Enrico V, et al. Dietary inflammatory index and low back pain in an adult civilian population of the U.S. Presented at: Association of Academic Physiatrists Annual Meeting; Feb. 9-13, 2021 (virtual meeting).
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