Back Pain Genetic.

Anahad O’Connor writing in the New York Times reports that “a growing number of studies are finding that chronic back pain has a strong genetic component.”  For example, an analysis published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, based on records from a “large health and genealogic database to study more than a million Utah residents,” found that having a “second-degree relative (aunt, uncle or grandparent) or third-degree relative (cousin) with the condition increased a person’s risk, regardless of environmental factors.”  Moreover, the data indicated that having “an immediate family member raised a person’s risk more than four times.”