[Obesity and low back pain--biology, biomechanics and epidemiology]

Aim of the following paper is to describe the impact of obesity on low back pain. The mature disc is one of the most sparsely cellular tissues in the body, water content and concentration of proteoglycan decreases with increasing age. Both, static compressive loading and increased pressures, may result in damage of the integrity of the disc like tears of the anulus, followed by mechanical compression or chemical damage of the nerve roots. The intradiscal pressure is dependent on the body position and increases in the following order: prone, standing, upright sitting. In addition, bending and weight lifting increases the intradiscal pressure. For asymptomatic subjects, reported prevalences of disc degenerations in MRI studies are often quite high. Several studies report a significant association between body weight and low back pain, some do not. Recent research indicates that heredity has a dominant role in disc degeneration and low back pain, although the complex distributions and interactions of genetic factors are currently unknown.