Association Between Overweight or Obesity and Lumbar Disk Diseases: A Meta-Analysis.

Study design: A meta-analysis.

Objective: We performed this meta-analysis to evaluate the association between overweight and lumbar disease.

Summary of background data: An extensive English language literature retrieval regarding the association between overweight and the risk of lumbar disease was conducted on Public Medline and Excerpta Medica Database until May 2014.

Methods: Meta-analysis for all the included literatures was performed by STATA 11.0 to summarize test performance with forest plots after heterogeneity test. Moreover, subgroup and sensitivity analyses were performed to examine the potential candidate effect factors. Afterward, the likelihood of publication bias was assessed by constructing funnel plots and performing Begg rank correlation test and Egger linear regression method.

Results: A total of 5 studies satisfied the predefined eligibility criteria, including 1749 cases with lumbar disk diseases and 1885 controls. Altogether, overweight was associated with increased risk of lumbar disease [odds ratio (OR)=1.45; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.27, 1.66; P<0.001]. Moreover, subgroup analysis proved that overweight was a predominant factor in development of lumbar disease compared with age and sex. Although significant publication bias was observed in our meta-analysis, we proved high credibility of meta-analysis result using trim and fill method (OR=1.27; 95% CI, 1.06, 1.53).

Conclusions: We suggest that overweight might increase the risk of lumbar diseases, and weight control should be considered for overweight or obese population to reduce the occurrence and development of lumbar disease.