14 DAY TRIAL // Courtesy of several fairly aggressive media campaigns, pretty much everybody knows that smoking messes with one's lungs, throat and teeth. Then again, chances are that few would ever suspect that this habit can cause people to develop chronic back pain.
The bad news (for smokers, that is) is that it most certainly can. Thus, a paper authored by researchers with Northwestern University in Illinois, US, and published in the journal Human Brain Mapping argues that smokers are 3 times more vulnerable to intense back pain.
What does smoking have to do with back pain?
Looking to better understand the link between smoking and chronic back pain, the Northwestern University researchers behind this investigation started by monitoring several dozen adults diagnosed with this condition over the course of a year.
All in all, the specialists kept tabs on the overall health condition of 32 chronic back pain sufferers. These participants' health was compared to that of 35 volunteers who had no trouble with back pain whatsoever, and 93 adults who only experienced back pain every once in a while.
The scientists used MRI scans to document activity patterns in two brain regions previously shown to be involved in chronic pain and also asked the participants to fill in questionnaires concerning their smoking habits throughout the year that they were monitored.
It was thus discovered that, in the case of smokers, two brain regions dubbed the nucleus accumbens and the medial prefrontal cortex had a stronger connection to one another. This in turn translated into their being 3 times more vulnerable to chronic back pain.
In their paper, the Northwestern University scientists argue that, based on this information, it can be argued that smoking ups the risk for chronic back pain by toying with the brain and altering the response to such sensations.
“That circuit was very strong and active in the brain’s of smokers. Smoking affects the brain,” said study lead author Bogdan Petre. Furthermore, “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.”
Mind you, it's not all bad news
On the bright side, scientist Bogdan Petre and fellow researchers argue that, in the case of people who decide to give up smoking, this faulty brain activity patterns have high chances to return to normal. Simply put, something as simple as kicking the habit is more than enough to fight off chronic back pain.
“We saw a dramatic drop in this circuit's activity in smokers who – of their own will – quit smoking during the study, so when they stopped smoking, their vulnerably to chronic pain also decreased,” study lead author Bogdan Petre wished to stress.