Feel Good


Exercise: The Cure for Lower Back Pain

A new study shows that exercise works better than shoe insoles, lumbar support belts or any store-bought item

BY January 12, 2016

 

Maybe tuck that lumbar support belt away.

A new study is suggesting that the best thing to alleviate lower back pain can’t be bought in a store. It’s just good, old-fashioned exercise.

A team of researchers published a review of more than 30,000 study participants in JAMA Internal Medicine recently, saying that exercise reduced the risk of reoccurring back pain by up to 40 percent. And, it didn’t just take intense core workouts to be effective, they found. It could be something as simple as a stretching or flexibility routine.

Shoe insoles, back support belts, ergonomic chairs—those didn’t work anywhere near as well.

"If there were a pill out there that could reduce your risk of future episodes of back pain by 30 percent, I'd probably be seeing ads on television every night," Dr. Tim Carey of University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill told NPR.

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