Best Health And Wellness Info

Quitting Smoking: A Must for People with Back Pain

Hopefully you can hear the soundtrack for the video above.  I know the volume doesn’t go very high and the speaker is pretty monotone, but the message is an important one.

People who smoke have a 300% higher incidence of back pain than nonsmokers.  Part of the increased back pain in smokers is thought to be related to decreased circulation and tissue oxygenation.  Poor circulation and decreased oxygen produces several effects, including trigger point formation and soft tissue degeneration.  This means muscle tightness and accelerated degenerative changes in the joints.

In addition to the problem of circulation and oxygen, as the video states, nicotine is believed to kill the cells that produce new bone. 

Under normal circumstances, bones are in a constant state of turnover.  One set of cells, the osteoblasts, extract minerals and other nutrients from the blood to form new bone.  Another set of cells, the osteoclasts, break down old bone.  This continuous recycling of bone, when it occurs in proper balance, allows for strong, resilient bones throughout life.  As discussed in previous posts about osteoporosis drugs, the drugs block the action of the osteoclasts, and so old bone does not get broken down (in the long-run this leads to dense, but brittle bones). 

Nicotine has the opposite effect.  Nicotine inhibits the osteoblasts, the cells that form new bone.  This of course leads to faster breakdown of bone than building of new bone.  The result is osteoporosis and eventually fractures due to weakened bones.  In the spine, this is often seen as vertebral compression fractures, where the spinal bones collapse in on themselves, much like what happens when a building is demolished via implosion with explosives that take out the supporting structures within.  This results in severe back pain, as well as produces significant postural distortion - typically creating a forward “hunched” appearance.

Not only does nicotine from smoking have this bone-weakening effect, but nicotine from any source will interfere with normal bone building.  This includes nicotine from chewing tobacco, and even nicotine in products intended to help people quit smoking such as nicotine gum and patches. 

Of course, nicotine in stop-smoking aids will hopefully be used only short-term and will lead to a cessation of smoking and long-term nicotine use, but for many people they are ineffective.  In some cases, people will continue to smoke heavily AND use stop-smoking nicotine products for extended periods of time.  For those individuals who have not been successful in quitting smoking with nicotine-containing products within a reasonable period of time, it is recommended that they consider switching to a different smoking cessation method.  Two methods I suggest are the Emotional Freedom Technique, and the Better Living With Hypnosis smoking cessation program.

If you’re a smoker and you suffer from back pain, you now have yet another reason to quit.  Good luck!

Share This