You are here

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

XML
Epidemiology/Health Services Research
Is chronic low back pain a risk factor for diabetes? The Nord-Trøndelag Health Study
  1. Ingrid Heuch1,
  2. Ivar Heuch2,
  3. Knut Hagen3,4,
  4. Elin Pettersen Sørgjerd5,
  5. Bjørn Olav Åsvold5,6,7,
  6. John-Anker Zwart1,8
  1. 1 Department of Research, Innovation and Education, Division of Clinical Neuroscience, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
  2. 2 Department of Mathematics, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
  3. 3 Department of Neuromedicine and Movement Science, NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
  4. 4 Norwegian Advisory Unit on Headaches, St. Olavs University Hospital, Trondheim, Norway
  5. 5 Department of Public Health and Nursing, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, HUNT Research Centre, NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Levanger, Norway
  6. 6 Department of Public Health and Nursing, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, K.G. Jebsen Center for Genetic Epidemiology, NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
  7. 7 Department of Endocrinology, St. Olavs Hospital, Trondheim University Hospital, Trondheim, Norway
  8. 8 Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
  1. Correspondence to Dr Ingrid Heuch; ingrid.heuch{at}ous-hf.no

Abstract

Objective The purpose of this study was to examine the risk of diabetes associated with the presence or absence of chronic low back pain, considering both cross-sectional and cohort data.

Research design and methods Analyses were based on the Norwegian HUNT2 and HUNT3 surveys of Nord-Trøndelag County. The prevalence of diabetes was compared in groups with and without chronic low back pain among 45 157 participants aged 30–69 years. Associations between low back pain at baseline and risk of diabetes were examined in an 11-year follow-up of 30 380 individuals with no baseline diagnosis of diabetes. The comorbidity between diabetes and low back pain was assessed at the end of follow-up. All analyses were carried out considering generalized linear models incorporating adjustment for other relevant risk factors.

Results Cross-sectional analyses did not reveal any association between low back pain and diabetes. With adjustment for age, body mass index, physical activity and smoking, the cohort study of women showed a significant association between low back pain at baseline and risk of diabetes (RR 1.30; 95%  CI 1.09 to 1.54, p=0.003). The association differed between age groups (p=0.015), with a stronger association in relatively young women. In men, no association was found in the whole age range (RR 1.02; 95%  CI 0.86 to 1.21, p=0.82). No association was observed between diabetes and chronic low back pain at the end of follow-up.

Conclusion Among younger women, those with chronic low back pain may have an increased risk of diabetes.

  • diabetes
  • low back pain
  • musculoskeletal disorder
  • cohort
  • HUNT

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjdrc-2018-000569

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors InH and IH contributed to analysis and interpretation of data. InH wrote the paper. IH, KH, EPS, BOÅ and JAZ revised the manuscript. All the authors contributed to the study design and have read and approved the paper.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Not required.

    • Ethics approval The work was approved by the Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics in Central Norway, and HUNT was also approved by the Norwegian Data Inspectorate.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement The data set analysed belongs to a third party, the HUNT study (the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study). The authors of the current manuscript are not affiliated with the project as such but have been given permission to analyse the data after obtaining the necessary Norwegian permits. Because of the confidentiality requirements according to Norwegian law, a data set of this kind with information from a complete county at the individual level cannot be made public. However, research groups wishing to analyse data from the HUNT study may apply to the HUNT organization (http://www.ntnu.edu/hunt) to get access to the data, after having obtained the permits needed according to Norwegian law.