Obese People Might Be More Sensitive to Pain

Physical factors may combine to increase sensitivity, researchers say

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

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WEDNESDAY, March 1 (HealthDay News) -- Obese people may be more sensitive to pain than people who aren't overweight, a new study suggests.

Researchers gauged reaction to pain among 62 older adults who had osteoarthritis of the knee, a disease that affects more than 20 million people in the United States. The study participants -- one-third of whom were obese -- were given a mild electrical shock on the left ankle that caused sensations of tingling and mild pain in the lower leg. This was done before and after the participants took a 45-minute, coping-skills session that included progressive muscle-relaxation exercises.

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The researchers wanted to see if coping-skills training would help people with osteoarthritis to better cope with the pain caused by the disease.

But the scientists were especially interested in determining how the obese group responded to pain. A small number of studies have looked at pain sensitivity among obese people, but they have produced conflicting results.

The researchers found that obese individuals had a greater physical response to the electrical stimulation than non-obese people. They based their findings by measuring the reflex of the lower leg muscles; this indicated that the obese individuals had a lower tolerance for pain, even though they said that they felt no more pain than non-obese people.

The findings are to be presented Saturday at the American Psychosomatic Society annual meeting, in Denver.

"For subjective indicators of pain, obese people indicated similar levels of pain to non-obese people," said study author Charles Emery, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University. "But when we looked at objective indicators, we found that the obese group had a lower threshold for pain."

Emery believes that obese people may have more experience with pain because of their weight. "They may be used to some degree of pain," he said.

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