Walking Could Help Millions with Lower Back Pain
Up to 800 million people around the world may be affected by lower back pain and many sufferers find that their pain keeps on coming back.
But researchers believe that doing one simple thing could help: walking.
A team from Macquarie University in Australia found that going for walks could be a good way to manage pain.
Just over 700 people took part in the study. Most were women and their average age was 54. All of them had recently recovered from lower back pain.
The participants were put into two groups. One group took part in a walking program and had six sessions with a physiotherapist.
People in this group were asked to work toward doing 30 minutes of walking five times a week, while those in the other group didn't do anything.
They were all studied by the researchers for between one year and three years.
The researchers found that people in the walking group had an average of 208 days before their back pain returned, while those in the other group suffered pain again after an average of 112 days.
Participants in the walking group also made far fewer visits to the doctor and took less time off work.
The good thing about the program is that it's easy for people to do and it's cheap, said Natasha Pocovi, one of the authors. People had just three meetings and three phone calls with a physiotherapist during the program.
The researchers said they aren't quite sure why walking is so good for back pain, but it's probably a combination of the gentle movement, muscle strengthening, and the feel-good effect of doing exercise.
