Source: Bone  |  Posted 9 years ago

Tobacco smoking is linked to reports of regional pain, even in ex-smokers, report researchers from University of Southampton, in Southampton, England.

They suggest this association could arise from a pharmacological effect of tobacco smoke, such as on neurological processing of sensory information or nutrition of peripheral tissue. Yet another possibility is that people with a low threshold for reporting pain and disability are more likely to take up and continue smoking, note Dr. K. T. Palmer and colleagues from the.

To explore the link between smoking habits and regional pain, these investigators surveyed adults randomly selected from the registers of 34 doctors in Britain, as well as a smaller group of members of the armed services.

Participants were asked about pain in the low back, neck and upper and lower limbs in the past 12 months, smoking habits, physical activities at work, headaches, and fatigue or stress. The associations were then examined by logistic regression and expressed as prevalence ratios.

Among 12 907 subjects -- including 6,513 who had smoked at some time and of whom almost half were current smokers -- smoking habits were linked with age, social class, reports of headaches, fatigue or stress, and manual activities at work.

When the researchers adjusted for potential confounders, current and ex-smokers had higher risks for pain at all of the sites compared to lifetime non-smokers. This link was especially strong in patients who reported pain that prevented the performance of normal activities, with prevalence ratios up to 1.6 in current versus never smokers.

These links were similar for both genders and also when the analysis was restricted to non-manual workers.