Smoking, alcohol and coffee consumption and risk of low back pain

Low back pain is a common health problem in the global population. A study assessed whether smoking initiation, alcohol consumption, and coffee consumption are causally associated with an increased risk of low back pain.
A two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR) study was designed, based on summary-level data from the largest published genome-wide association studies. Single nucleotide polymorphisms with genome-wide significance level were selected as instrumental variables for each exposure.
The study found that genetically predicted smoking initiation was causally associated with higher odds of low back pain. The pooled OR of low back pain was 1.36 (95%CI 1.22 1.52) for one SD increase in prevalence of smoking initiation, which was supported by the weighted median method (OR: 1.41, 95%CI 1.22, 1.64). There was no evidence to suggest a causal effect of alcohol and coffee consumption on LBP. The pooled ORs of low back pain were 1.36 (95%CI 0.94, 1.97) for alcohol consumption and 1.00 (95%CI 0.99, 1.00) for coffee consumption, respectively.
Smoking is causally associated with an increased risk of low back pain, the study found. The authors argue that smoking control should be recommended in low back pain patients to avoid worsening the disease and they suggest that safety of LBP with moderate alcohol and coffee consumption merits more study.
Source: Lv Z, Cui J, Zhang J. Smoking, alcohol and coffee consumption and risk of low back pain: a Mendelian randomization study. Eur Spine J. 2022 Nov;31(11):2913-2919.