Overweight children at risk from back and spinal problems

Children who are overweight may develop back pain and spinal abnormalities usually seen in adults, new research has found.

"This is the first study to show an association between increased body mass index (BMI) and disc abnormalities in children," said Dr Judah G Burns, from The Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York City, who led the study.

Back pain in children is usually caused by muscle spasm or sprains, but this latest research suggests that being overweight also puts them at risk of disc degeneration.

In the four year study, Dr. Burns and his team examined MRI scans of the spines of 188 young people between the ages of 12 and 20. All had complained of unexplained back pain.

The images showed that 52% the participants had an abnormality in their lower, or lumbar spine. Most of these were found to occur in the spinal discs, the sponge-like cushions between the vertebrae of the spine.

Disc disease occurs when a disc ruptures or bulges from between the vertebrae and presses on nerves, often causing severe pain. It most often occurs around the age 40 or above.

"It is assumed that disc disease does not occur in children, but my experience says otherwise," Dr Burns said.

The likelihood of disc disease was also shown to increase with the patient's body mass index (BMI). Spinal abnormalities were found in 68.5% of patients who were in the top 25% weight range for their age compared to 34.6% of those who were at or below a healthy weight.

"We observed a trend toward increased spine abnormality with higher BMI," Dr. Burns said.

"These results demonstrate a strong relationship between increased BMI in the paediatric population and the incidence of lumbar disc disease," Dr Burns added.

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

This article was published on Wed 2 December 2009