--- title: Lower Back Pain Is The Most Common Cause of Global Disability description: About 1 in 10 people suffer from lower back pain canonical: https://time.com/36242/lower-back-pain-is-no-1-cause-of-disability-worldwide/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-25T15:12:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T06:56:22.655Z article:section: Health og:title: Lower Back Pain Is The Most Common Cause of Global Disability og:description: About 1 in 10 people suffer from lower back pain og:url: https://time.com/36242/lower-back-pain-is-no-1-cause-of-disability-worldwide/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt224694efa21e7e93/6986870635ba6fb244c01282/88969624-1-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5142 og:image:height: 2892 og:image:alt: 88969624 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Lower Back Pain Is The Most Common Cause of Global Disability twitter:description: About 1 in 10 people suffer from lower back pain twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt224694efa21e7e93/6986870635ba6fb244c01282/88969624-1-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Is the No. 1 Cause of Disability Worldwide > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=856fa842-e9ff-4498-8965-a05c899d794b&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Mar 25, 2014 3:12 PM UTC  Senior woman with backache Senior woman with backache i love images—Getty Images/Cultura RF by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Mar 25, 2014 3:12 PM UTC Americans [spend](http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/backpain/detail%5Fbackpain.htm) at least $50 billion each year on lower back pain, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and it’s now the No. 1 cause of job disability around the world. In a new study published in the _Annals of Rheumatic Diseases_, researchers gathered data from 117 studies from 47 different countries and other supplemental surveys. Lower back pain is the top cause for years lost due to disability (calculated by adding years lost as a result of early death and the number of years lived with disability). About one in 10 people suffer from lower back pain, and prevalence is highest in Western Europe and lowest in the Caribbean and Latin America. And the world’s growing population of elderly means people are living longer with pain. Besides lost productivity and years of life, chronic back pain’s major problem is how to treat it. There are standard pain killers, heat or ice application, and even surgery in severe cases. Some people prefer acupuncture or even more intensive medication like opioids–which raises addiction concerns. Being sedentary is thought to be one of the causes of back pain, so one the most effective treatments turns out to be exercise. “Exercise may be the most effective way to speed recovery from low back pain and help strengthen back and abdominal muscles. Maintaining and building muscle strength is particularly important for persons with skeletal irregularities,” the NINDS [writes](http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/backpain/detail%5Fbackpain.htm) on its website. The best type of exercises for back pain typically incorporate some muscle work and stretching–something like yoga is thought to do wonders. Walking and swimming also combine muscle building and stretching, and any discomfort during exercise should fade as muscles start to bulk up in the right places. There’s no magic bullet to prevent the onset of lower back pain, especially if it’s brought on by age, but there are ways to keep the changes at bay: for instance, getting regular physical activity and making sure kids don’t wear backpacks overloaded with heavy school books–kids regularly go to the emergency room for backpack-related injuries. Given how common and debilitating back pain can be, the study’s authors argue it’s not getting the attention it should. “Governments, health service and research providers and donors need to pay far greater attention to the burden that low back pain causes than what they had done previously,” the authors write. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/36242/lower-back-pain-is-no-1-cause-of-disability-worldwide/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/36242/lower-back-pain-is-no-1-cause-of-disability-worldwide/"},"headline":"This Is the No. 1 Cause of Disability Worldwide","datePublished":"2014-03-25T15:12:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T06:56:22.655Z","description":"About 1 in 10 people suffer from lower back pain","url":"https://time.com/36242/lower-back-pain-is-no-1-cause-of-disability-worldwide/","keywords":["Pain"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt224694efa21e7e93/6986870635ba6fb244c01282/88969624-1-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt224694efa21e7e93/6986870635ba6fb244c01282/88969624-1-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"88969624","caption":"88969624","creditText":"i love images—Getty Images/Cultura RF","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/pain/","name":"Pain"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/36242/lower-back-pain-is-no-1-cause-of-disability-worldwide/","name":"This Is the No. 1 Cause of Disability Worldwide"}}]}] ```