Back Pain=Smaller Brain ..Who Would Have Thought

By Dr. Travis Morgan

Does your back always hurt? It may be time to take care of it. Research published in the Journal of Neuroscience has found that chronic back pain causes shrinking of the brain.

The study, done by A. Vania Apkarian at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, found a 5-11% decrease in brain size among chronic back pain sufferers. This is equivalent to 10-20 years of aging. The good news is that the amount of shrinking was directly related to the duration of pain. This means that the longer you have pain the more brain tissue you loose. The reverse is also true, the faster you get rid of the pain, the faster you stop the loss. Clearly the "learn to live with it" mentality has got to stop, your next thought might depend on it.

There are treatment options available for chronic sufferers, but, why wait until it is too late? Prevention is the best medicine. A regular exercise plan, healthy diet and normal body weight will help prevent back pain but sometimes that is not enough. A simple posture exam can give you a glimpse into the condition of your spine and tell you if you are in need of further care.

Check to see if your ears, shoulders and hips are level. Next get someone to look at you from the side, your ear, shoulder, hip and ankle should fall on a plumb line. Any deviation from this can indicate the start of spinal degeneration which causes chronic back pain and possibly a smaller brain.

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