Obesity's Strain Causing More Back Pain

THURSDAY, June 9 (HealthDay News) — Rising rates of obesity are increasingly tough on Americans' overloaded backs, a new patient survey finds.

"People are coming in not by dozens but in droves because of obesity and their back pain," Dr. Tom Faciszewski, an orthopedic surgeon at the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin, said in a prepared statement.

Earlier this year, experts at the North American Spine Society (NASS) conducted a national survey of U.S. spine care professionals and found the number of obese patients being treated for spine-related disorders has increased 67 percent over the past five years.

Eighty-seven percent of the spine care professionals in the survey agreed that obesity plays a major role in back pain, while 94 percent said they recommended weight loss as a treatment for obese patients. Fifty-five percent of the spine care professionals found that weight loss resulted in major improvements in their obese patients' symptoms.

To heighten awareness about the impact of obesity on the spine, NASS recently launched its fourth annual patient education program, "Take a Load off Your Back."

The three most common back problems in obese patients are degenerative disc disease, spondylolisthesis (slippage of the lower back disc), and disc rupture or herniation, NASS officials said.