What Works for Low Back Pain? Not Much, a New Study Says

What works for low back pain? Not much, a new study says

Researchers looked at 56 treatments for acute and chronic pain. Few of them were effective. Acetaminophen. Acupuncture. Massage. Muscle relaxants....

Acupuncture, massage and painkillers. The list of what is offered for back pain is long. But not much helps, according to experts who have reviewed the collected research.

Not Much Works To Soothe Low Back Pain, Study Says

Key Takeaways

Just 1 in 10 back pain treatments work, study says — what to do instead

Chronic back pain is the most common type of pain, affecting around 16 million American adults — and now a new study has revealed some discouraging findings about potential treatments.Only around one in every 10 treatments was found to be effective in relieving lower back pain, according to a new study published in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine.Many of them are "barely better than a placebo" in terms of pain relief, as stated in a press release fr…

Why it’s so hard to fix back pain – and what does and doesn’t work

This is Everyday Science with Clare Wilson, a subscriber-only newsletter from The i Paper. If you’d like to get this direct to your inbox, every single week, you can sign up here. Hello, and welcome back to Everyday Science.You may have seen articles this week saying that most non-surgical back pain treatments – like painkillers and heat treatments – don’t work very well.As someone who has had back trouble myself, this is a subject I have been f…

What Works for Low Back Pain? Not Much, a New Study Says

Acetaminophen. Acupuncture. Massage. Muscle relaxants. Cannabinoids. Opioids. The list of available treatments for low back pain goes on and on. But there’s not good evidence that these treatments actually reduce the pain, according to a new study that summarized the…