94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or good
Learn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish.
Find out more
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Geriatric Medicine
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1538754
Associations between insulin resistance and low back pain risk in US adults: a cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted- 1First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
- 2Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Insulin resistance is one of the major pathophysiological features of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Studies have revealed the association between type 2 diabetes mellitus and low back pain. However, few studies explored the relationship between insulin resistance and low back pain directly. Therefore, this study selected HOMA-IR, TyG, TyG-BMI, TyG-WC, and TyG-WtHR as indicators of insulin resistance to comprehensively investigate the association between insulin resistance and low back pain.Methods: The data for this cross-sectional study were from NHANES. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the association of insulin resistance with low back pain, and the stability of the results was evaluated by stratified analysis.Results: A total of 6,126 adult participants were included in the study, including 3,657 non-LBP participants and 2,469 LBP patients. All of these five indices showed significant association with low back pain after full adjustment for all covariates (Model 3), HOMA-IR (OR = 1.052, 95%CI(1.018, 1.087), P = 0.003), TyG (OR = 1.431, 95%CI(1.013, 2.021), P = 0.042), TyG-BMI (OR = 1.003, 95%CI(1.002, 1.005), P < 0.0001), TyG-WC (OR = 1.001, 95%CI(1.001, 1.002), P < 0.0001), TyG-WtHR (OR = 1.268, 95%CI(1.155, 1.393), P <0.0001). The relationship between insulin resistance and low back pain is stable in most stratified populations (P-interaction> 0.05).Conclusions: Insulin resistance is associated with an increased risk of low back pain. The HOMA-IR, TyG, TyG-WC, TyG-BMI, and TyG-WtHR all showed a stable correlation with low back pain. TyG-BMI, TyG-WC, and TyG-WtHR are more stable in their associations with low back pain than TyG alone.
Keywords: Insulin Resistance, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Triglyceride-glucose index, Cross sectional study, Low Back Pain
Received: 03 Dec 2024; Accepted: 09 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Que, Chen, Cai, Lan, Huang and Rui. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Weibin Lan, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, 350108, Fujian Province, China
Yuxuan Huang, First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
Gang Rui, First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.