The 600,000 older Australians who suffer from back pain have a 13 per cent increased risk of dying from any cause, University of Sydney research has found.
Published in the European Journal of Pain, the study of 4390 Danish twins aged more than 70 years investigated whether spinal pain increased the rate of all-cause and disease-specific cardiovascular mortality.
Low back pain is a major problem, ranked as the highest contributor to disability in the world. Nearly four million people in Australia suffer from low back pain and the total cost of treatment exceeds $1 billion a year.
