Association of accelerometer-measured physical activity, back static muscular endurance and abdominal obesity with radicular pain and non-specific low back pain

Low back pain (LBP) is the leading cause of disability worldwide and often associated with lifestyle factors. However, studies further examining the role of these lifestyle factors in non-specific low back pain in comparison with radicular pain are sparse. The aim of this cross sectional study was to investigate how diverse lifestyle factors are associated with LBP. The study population of 3385 middle aged adults with and without low back pain was drawn from a large Birth 1966 Cohort. Outcome measures were steps per day, abdominal obesity, physical activity and endurance of the back muscles. Back static muscular endurance, abdominal obesity and physical activity were measured by means of the Biering–Sørensen test, waist circumference and a wrist worn accelerometer, respectively. Logistic regression analysis was applied to estimate associations of back static muscular endurance, abdominal obesity and accelerometer-measured physical activity with non-specific low back pain and radicular pain. An additional 1000 steps per day were associated with 4% lower odds of having non-specific low back pain. Participants with abdominal obesity had 46% higher odds of having radicular pain, whereas increases of 10 s in back static muscular endurance and 10 min in daily vigorous physical activity were associated with 5% and 7% lower odds of having radicular pain, respectively. In this population-based study, non-specific low back pain and radicular pain were associated with different lifestyle and physical factors at midlife. Non-specific low back pain was associated only with the average daily number of steps, whereas abdominal obesity was the strongest determinant of radicular pain, followed by vigorous physical activity and back static muscular endurance. The findings of this study contribute to better understand the role of lifestyle factors in both non-specific low back pain and radicular pain. Future longitudinal studies are required to explore causality.