Chronic Widespread Pain – a study presented at the EULAR 2012

Chronic widespread pain is important for diagnosing fibromyalgia. A Norwegian study looked prospectively at chronic widespread pain and obesity. K. Magnusson and colleagues followed a cohort for 20 years. 855 people took part in the survey and so statistics are relevant. The body mass index in 1990, 1994 and 2004 wasn’t associated with chronic widespread pain in 2010. Chronic widespread pain in 1990, 1994 and 2004 wasn’t associated with a higher body mass index in 2010. The authors found in the wake of this study that “female sex, poor perceived health, poor sleep quality and smoking were associated with a significantly higher number of pain sites” and “being male and poor perceived health were associated with higher BMI”.
There are still people, who think that one has to be obese and depressive to have fibromyalgia.
Have a look at the conclusions of this interesting study from Norway.

[OP0198-HPR] NO PROSPECTIVE ASSOCIATION FOUND BETWEEN OBESITY AND CHRONIC, WIDESPREAD MUSCULOSKELETAL PAIN IN A POPULATION BASED 20-YEAR PROSPECTIVE FOLLOW-UP STUDY
K. Magnusson1, N. Østerås1, P. Mowinckel1, N. Bård2, K.B. Hagen1. 1National Resource Center for Rehabilitation In Rheumatology Diakonhjemmet Hospital; 2Department of General Practice, Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Conclusions: CWP and obesity did not mutually influence each other in this study, but perceived health predicted both conditions, and poor sleep was a predictor of more CWP. Although poor sleep has been found to predict obesity in previous studies, this was not found in this study. Future research should focus on the role health perception and sleep quality can have on the development of both CWP and obesity.