How to Prevent and Reverse Low Back Pain
Low back pain affects over 60 million Americans, or nearly one in four adults. Once considered a problem of aging or injury, it has become one of the most common and costly chronic conditions in the United States.
The burden of low back pain increases sharply with age. About 35% of adults in their fifties report pain involving the lower back from different causes, and the prevalence continues to climb in older groups.
Women experience low back pain earlier and more often than men. The difference is 41% versus 34%, and their risk rises through and beyond early adulthood, most likely because of pregnancies, related weight gain, and carrying infants and toddlers. It wasn’t as big a problem in the past because women were stronger, skinnier, and children were smaller.
Considering the staggering number of people affected, low back pain has evolved into a national epidemic and a multibillion-dollar industry. And the number of patients keeps growing year after year. Adding insult to injury, the treatments aren’t particularly effective:
Only about 50% of patients with chronic back pain report significant improvement after treatment [link].
Around 62% of people may still experience pain at 12 months after their initial episode [link].
One-year recurrence rates of the low back pain range from 24% to 80%, so episodes frequently return [link].
I wrote this guide to help you avoid becoming another profit center for the spine-pain industry.
Carrying Two-Thirds of the Body’s Weight 24/7 Takes Its Toll
Your lower back supports all of the upper body’s weight in sitting and standing positions. It is responsible for maintaining posture, stabilizing the trunk during movement, and enabling almost every action that involves the arms, head, or legs.
It is also affected by the weight of internal organs and surface resistance in the lying position, and can be equally vulnerable while asleep or when in the gym.
Every motion — bending, rotating, turning, reaching, or lifting — depends on coordinated engagement of dozens of spinal muscles, ligaments, joints, and vertebral disks, which makes the back uniquely vulnerable to fatigue, strain, injury, age-related wear-and-tear, and pain.
Despite all of these vulnerabilities, children, teenagers, and young adults are remarkably free of back pain, even when their lifestyle is utterly reckless.
By closely examining the phenomenon of why young individuals and a specific subset of older people remain free from back pain, we can develop effective strategies to prevent and reverse existing back pain.
Let’s take a look at my own situation…
I’m a few weeks away from turning 71 (October of 2025). My occupation — medical writing and nutritional consulting — is entirely sedentary. I spend 50 to 60 hours each week working on a computer or talking to clients while sitting down.
My physical activity consists mainly of daily chores, occasional walks, mowing the lawn in the summer, and shoveling snow in the winter. I also handle all household repairs, including electrical, plumbing, carpentry, and HVAC work, which often involves heavy lifting, climbing ladders, and awkward contortions to reach pipes and fixtures in tight spaces.
By all accounts, I should have serious low back problems because of my age, sedentary work, lack of regular exercise, and frequent exposure to physically demanding and biomechanically risky tasks.
Spending long hours seated, often in the same position, is a well-established contributor to muscular fatigue and spinal compression. Add to that the sudden bursts of strenuous activity, such as lifting heavy objects, climbing ladders, and crawling into confined spaces, and the cumulative strain on my back should be substantial.
Yet, despite all of these factors, I remain completely free of chronic back pain. What gives? What do I know or do that others don’t? Am I just lucky, or is this the outcome of something else? Can you trust my recommendations based on this experience, or should you dismiss it as a fluke?
Let me start by answering those questions directly:
What do I know or do that others don’t?
In terms of anatomical or physiological knowledge, everything about the structure and function of the low back has been well known for well over a century. Anyone can find this information in textbooks, research papers, or a first-year medical school curriculum. In my case, the difference isn’t knowledge, but it’s application.
Am I just lucky, or is this the outcome of something else?
No, I’m not. In fact, I’ve had serious problems with my lower back and wrists in the past, bad enough to derail my career and compromise my quality of life. Undiagnosed, late-stage type 2 diabetes made them worse by degrading my nerve function, circulation, and connective tissue health.
Like most people, I assumed my low back pain was forever. The improvement came spontaneously, as a “side effect” of addressing other, unrelated problems, and I’ve remained pain-free ever since, except with a single case of severe sciatica (a compression of the sciatic nerve) in 2016. It was triggered by physical trauma during the assembly of heavy equipment in the office.
Can you trust my recommendations based on this experience, or should you dismiss it as a fluke?
I don’t prescribe drugs. I don’t offer surgeries or procedures. Everything I recommend is lifestyle- and nutrition-related. If you’re skeptical, continue managing your symptoms with pain medications, massages, chiropractic manipulation, acupressure, ice baths, stretch tables, injections, and all other kinds of interventional or physical therapies.
I know anecdotally that my approach has helped many of my readers and clients, but I never tracked it directly or asked because it wasn’t a focus of my work.
Does it work in all cases? No, it doesn’t, especially when the damage is organic, such as a herniated or collapsed disc, spinal stenosis, or severe osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and osteomalacia. In those cases, lifestyle alone may not be enough to reverse these degenerative conditions, though it can still help to reduce pain and slow progression.
Let me now enumerate why I remain free of back pain:
By following my regimen of functional nutrition, I was able to prevent the onset of age-related osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and osteomalacia. These degenerative conditions are primarily driven by nutritional disorders that become more pronounced with age. And I have the proof — by my age, most men lose one to two inches in height. Mine is still the same as it was at 25. I can’t make this up; the height is right there on my driver’s license.
My muscles and ligaments remain supple, healthy, and flexible thanks to my nutritional protocol. This state prevents the kind of inflammation and microtears that are difficult to heal, especially in the lower back, where there is near-constant movement and mechanical stress.
My blood circulation, which is essential for muscle and bone health, has remained intact. In most people my age, circulation is reduced by a combination of hypertension drugs and atherosclerosis caused by chronic hyperinsulinemia and systemic inflammation.
I am not overweight. Since my recovery from diabetes and obesity, I have never carried excess weight, so my upper body remains in a relatively normal alignment. My vertebrae and hips have been spared from the wear-and-tear caused by excess mechanical loading.
I haven’t been taking statins to reduce the age-related rise in cholesterol. These cholesterol-lowering drugs are well known for causing muscular disorders, weakening muscle tissue, and accelerating bone loss.
My lifestyle involves a steady mix of light activity and occasional heavy exertion. Routine chores, home repairs, and seasonal work like snow shoveling or yard maintenance expose my body to a wide range of natural movements and physical loads. This level of non-repetitive, functional activity is likely more beneficial than any structured exercise program, and it has kept my muscles, joints, and ligaments conditioned without overuse.
I maintain normal glucose metabolism and adequate intake of critical nutrients because of my long-standing focus on functional nutrition. Metabolic health is essential for intramuscular energy production, vascular tone, and recovery. When your back muscles aren’t starved of energy, oxygen, or micronutrients, they don’t become tight, inflamed, or painful.
My metabolic health also protects me from chronic systemic inflammation, which is a known driver of connective tissue degradation and pain sensitization. I’ve avoided insulin resistance, excess visceral fat, and the medications that worsen them, so my tissues don’t stiffen from glycation, and my nerve endings aren’t constantly inflamed. This keeps my musculoskeletal system biologically younger than my age.
Decades of hands-on household experience have trained me to move with body awareness. I’m constantly engaging core muscles by adjusting to unusual physical positions. It has helped me avoid the careless motions and repetitive strain that often trigger back injuries, especially in people who are either inactive or overtrained.
My rate of recovery from overexertion is high because my energy metabolism is intact, my circulation is normal, and my bones, joints, ligaments, and muscles are well-supplied with oxygen, electrolytes, and structural micronutrients. When bones, muscles, and connective tissues are well supported, minor strains and microtears heal quickly, inflammation resolves on its own, and their function is restored without lingering pain or stiffness.
My nerves aren’t oversensitive to pain because they aren’t constantly irritated by systemic inflammation, poor circulation, or nutritional deficiencies. I maintain normal levels of key nutrients that support nerve stability and avoid the metabolic conditions, like insulin resistance or high cortisol, that amplify pain signaling. As a result, my pain thresholds remain normal, and minor discomforts don’t escalate into chronic pain.
My muscles are relaxed because my level of circulating stress hormones, particularly cortisol and adrenaline, is low. When elevated, stress hormones increase baseline muscle tension by keeping the body in a constant state of alertness. They also deplete electrolytes, which are essential for muscle relaxation. By avoiding chronic psychological stress, maintaining stable blood sugar, and getting adequate nutrient intake, I prevent the hormonal imbalances that keep muscles in a semi-contracted, fatigued, and pain-prone state.
My liver and kidneys are intact and functioning optimally thanks to functional nutrition and the absence of metabolic syndrome. Both organs are essential for bone and muscle health because they regulate the metabolism, activation, and elimination of key nutrients and hormones.
The liver activates vitamin D, synthesizes proteins needed for tissue repair, and removes inflammatory byproducts from circulation. The kidneys regulate electrolyte balance, especially calcium, phosphorus, sodium, and potassium, which directly affect muscle contraction, bone mineralization, and tissue hydration.
When the liver and kidneys work efficiently, bones retain their strength, muscles recover faster, and inflammatory waste products don’t accumulate to interfere with healing.
I take quality supplements to support my bone and muscle health. At my age, I can no longer eat, digest, and assimilate nutrients at the same rate as someone much younger can do near effortlessly. I’ll cover this point in more detail further down.
My results confirm that the body responds predictably when it’s well nourished, reasonably protected, and allowed to heal itself. Unfortunately, most people never get that chance, because much of what they’ve been told about back pain, aging, and recovery is built on half-truths and misconceptions rather than biological reality.
Half-Truths are Worse Than Lies
I bet you’ve never heard most of the above points from doctors, chiropractors, massage therapists, physiologists, surgeons, or pain specialists. But I’m sure you’ve heard all of the half-truth repeated ad nauseam:
Your pain is caused by aging and genetics. This claim is total nonsense. Aging and genetics on their own don’t cause low back pain or bone disease.
You need to strengthen your core. Good luck doing that if you already have chronic back pain. Most likely, you'll cause even more damage. A strong core doesn’t guarantee anything. On the contrary, it can actually increase your risk of injury because you’re more likely to have stiff muscles and act recklessly when lifting heavy weights or engaging in other risky activities.
You need to stretch more. Same as above. I do stretch periodically, but only because my muscles and ligaments aren’t tense or stiff. Yoga and Pilates are great, but unprepared people often end up with serious injuries.
You have poor posture. There’s some truth to this. My posture isn’t perfect either, but it doesn’t affect my back. Good luck changing your posture after forty.
You need better shoes, a better chair, or a better mattress. I bet you’ve already tried all that, and the pain didn’t go away. You’re not alone. Most authorities still insist that you must sleep on a hard mattress. That’s total nonsense. I sleep on a soft mattress to avoid over-tensing my muscles from the back pressure and abnormal spine curvature while sleeping on a hard surface.
You need to lose weight. That’s good advice in general. Unfortunately, muscle pain and bone disorders are common side effects of most weight-loss protocols, especially those involving GLP-1 medications, because they deprive the body of the macro- and micronutrients required to maintain bone and muscle health.
You’re too inactive or too active. Many people are inactive because of back pain that started after being too active. Go figure that one out.
You have a bulging disc. Disc bulges are common in people without pain, often unrelated to symptoms, and are rarely the true cause of chronic back pain.
Ironically, none of these explanations is entirely wrong, but none of them goes deep enough to fix the problem. I heard all the same advice myself when I was struggling with back pain in my thirties and forties.
How to Walk Back Your Back Pain?
— Konstantin, so what would you recommend I do to recover from back pain?
I can only answer this question in general terms that may be helpful for readers whose pain is still functional, meaning there’s no irreversible physical damage. Fortunately, they are in the majority. If that’s the case for you, here’s what worked for me and may help you as well:
Prevent degenerative conditions. Follow a nutrition plan that supports long-term musculoskeletal health and prevents age-related conditions like osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and osteomalacia. These are not inevitable; they result from micronutrient deficiencies, overhydration, weight-loss diets, intestinal inflammation, acid reducers, and other perils described throughout my site and health guides.
Keep muscles and ligaments supple. Support tissue flexibility and repair by maintaining normal levels of magnesium, potassium, protein, and other micronutrients that, after about 40, you can obtain only from supplements. Avoid drugs and diets that interfere with collagen maintenance or mineral absorption.
Protect circulation. Do everything possible to maintain healthy blood flow, especially to the extremities and spine. That means managing insulin levels, avoiding inflammatory diets, minimizing unnecessary medications, and not sitting in fixed positions for long stretches.
Maintain a normal body weight. Keep your weight within a functional range—not just for looks or lab values, but to reduce the mechanical stress on your vertebrae, hips, and supporting joints. Even small excesses add up over time when it comes to joint wear and spinal strain. I realize it’s nearly impossible in the United States, but nothing stops you from reading my materials on weight loss and giving it a try.
Avoid medications that damage muscle and bone. Stay away from statins and other drugs known to interfere with muscle function, electrolyte balance, or bone turnover. If a drug is necessary, make sure its nutrient-depleting effects are offset through diet and supplementation.
Stay physically active. Daily light-to-moderate activity, such as walking, carrying, lifting, and stretching, is usually better than sporadic intense workouts. Functional movement patterns, not amateurish gym routines, are what preserve long-term musculoskeletal integrity.
I have nothing but respect for serious athletes. I know many and have worked with some. They take their nutrition very seriously, and supplements play a major part in their diet and lifestyle. That’s why the smartest of them remain exceptionally healthy well into their forties, fifties, and sixties.
Support muscle energy metabolism. Make sure your cells can produce and recycle ATP efficiently. That means adequate intake of magnesium, potassium, and high-quality protein, along with stable blood sugar and thyroid support if needed. Tired muscles become stiff, and stiff muscles tear themselves and the attached ligaments, which become extremely painful.
Keep systemic inflammation low. Keep excessive insulin under control by avoiding sweet foods and all forms of sweetness, natural or artificial. Elevated insulin drives inflammation throughout the body. Chronic inflammation sensitizes pain receptors, slows healing, and weakens connective tissues.
Train body awareness, not just movement. Do the kind of work or play that requires precision, balance, and leverage. When you move with awareness and control, you don’t get hurt as easily, and your back learns to support you instead of fighting against you.
I described how I fell off the top of a six-foot step ladder onto a concrete sidewalk on this page: Why Should You Trust Me? Very few people half my age would walk away from that experience intact, but I did at 70.
My late mother, who had been on my regimen for five years by the time of her accident, fell face-first from the stairs in our house at age 81 and, to our shock and amazement, walked away with just a few bruises.
S**t happens, as they say, so you’d better be prepared.
Support rapid recovery. If you get hurt or overexert yourself, you want your body to heal quickly. That requires adequate nutrient reserves, a sparing diet, and effective inflammation control. Most pain becomes chronic simply because the body cannot complete the healing process in time.
Accidental falls are the leading cause of injury and death among adults aged 65 and older in the United States, with both incidence and mortality rising sharply over the past two decades. It happens not because the victims are old, but because their bodies can no longer recover from such trauma.
When someone becomes unable to move or walk after a fall due to a hip fracture, spinal injury, or severe weakness, prolonged confinement to bed leads to secondary complications such as pressure ulcers (bedsores), muscle wasting, joint contractures, venous thrombosis, pneumonia, and urinary tract infections, all of which can contribute to premature death.
Desensitize the nerves. Keep your nervous system well-nourished, well-oxygenated, and free of chronic inflammation. Avoid blood sugar spikes, stress hormones, and inflammatory diets, which lower your pain threshold and keep your nerves in a reactive state.
Manage your stress response. Chronic stress keeps muscles in a semi-contracted state and depletes the minerals needed to relax them. Keeping your cortisol levels down isn’t just a mood strategy—it’s a physical one. Muscles that can relax don’t get tight, tired, or inflamed.
Keep your liver and kidneys functional. These two organs regulate the availability of the minerals, hormones, and nutrients that keep your bones and muscles alive. Support them through hydration, blood sugar control, nutrient density, and avoidance of toxins—pharmaceutical or otherwise.
Take basic supplements. Don’t assume you can get everything from food, especially after 40. Digestive capacity declines, and so does nutrient absorption. Basic supplements help close the critical gaps that diet alone cannot fill.
If you are a woman who has had children, breastfed, and dieted to stay slim, all of the above apply to you two or three times over. These are among the key reasons women experience back pain and bone loss far more often than men.
If you are a big, tall man—or overweight—the risk of back pain is practically guaranteed. Carrying all that height and weight is a heavy burden, which is why tall men are so often affected by the conditions discussed here. It also explains why the only people who make it past 100 are small, compact, and light on their feet.
— Konstantin, but how do I do all that?
— Make studying my site and books your life’s work. If you have a ton of money, you can pay me to “read” them for you. At the very least, take supplements that I recommend to protect your bones, joints, muscles, and ligaments from wear and tear, fractures, or outright wasting.
If that answer sounds arrogant to you, good luck finding someone with more knowledge and experience of nutritional deficiencies and their side effects. I would love to meet and learn from that person as well.
Quality Supplements Are the Cheapest Health and Wealth Insurance Money Can Buy!
I recommend taking the most basic supplements. Some of them you may already be using. The key isn’t what you take, but the quality of what’s in them. Most retail supplements, including many premium brands, are outright junk. Most of the money you pay goes toward packaging, marketing, and profit, and the least toward what’s actually going into your body.
When it comes to supplements, one of the most dangerous things about them is the false sense of security created by low-quality products. That’s also one of the main reasons so many people claim that “supplements don’t work.”
I’ve seen this time and again: clients coming to see me with a big pile of overpriced containers with attractive labels, and health problems just as big as that pile.
I don’t want to brag again, but I’m in the shape I’m in—and so are my family and many of my clients—because I recommend only what I’ve been taking myself for the past 25 years.
Having a degree in pharmacy, expertise in forensic nutrition, and a long history of health problems is a great asset when it comes to selecting and monitoring the value and effectiveness of supplements. In other words, I’ve guinea-pigged on your behalf, so you get what you pay for.
When it comes to back pain, the basic protection plan should include:
Coenzymated Once-Daily Multi Complex [link];
Coenzymated Methyl B-12 Vitamin [link];
Buffered Vitamin C Capsules on the days you don’t take vitamin C powder from the Hydro-CM set [link].
Calcium Magnesium Capsules on the days you don’t take magnesium powder from the Hydro-CM set [link];
Cod Liver Oil Liquid, which provides essential fatty acids and natural vitamins A and D [Amazon].
Vitamin D-3 capsules if you don’t take cod liver oil, or if you live in a northern region and don’t get sufficient sun exposure during autumn, winter, and spring [link].
The total cost of all of the above supplements is less than $1.60 per day, or about $584 per year. Past the age of 40, you should take them for life. If you miss a day or two, a week, or even a month, nothing bad will happen.
For comparison, the median out-of-pocket cost for treating low back pain in the United States ranges from $1,200 to $3,000 per person, depending on the treatment approach and whether insurance offsets any of the expenses. Most people rely on a combination of physical therapy, chiropractic care, medications, and, less often, specialty procedures or surgery. These figures don’t include lost wages or time required for treatment.
But if you stop taking them altogether, you can safely deduct two to three months per year from your projected longevity, as well as expect a significant decline in quality of life, greater dependence on prescription drugs, and a higher risk of dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease. Your chances of stroke, heart attack, and kidney or liver failure will also rise by a large margin.
Also keep in mind that I recommend the same set of supplements to prevent the onset of osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and osteomalacia; to protect your appearance from premature aging; to manage hunger and appetite; to normalize energy metabolism and prevent weight gain; to protect yourself from stroke and heart attack—and the list goes on. Of all the investments you can make in your health, energy, and future, nothing compares to taking quality supplements.
If you have plenty of money and enjoy a low-stress life, you may last for quite some time without supplements, but don’t expect a high quality of life. As I said at the beginning of this section, quality supplements are the cheapest health and wealth insurance money can buy.
Author’s Note
For every 1,000 emails I send out weekly, only about 30% are opened, and fewer than 5% of recipients go on to open and read the full article. That’s roughly 15 people out of 1,000, or less than 0.15%.
I’m mentioning this not to complain but to point out how rare genuine curiosity about health really is. Most people stay trapped in the same endless cycle of pain and disease simply because they never take the time to read, learn, or connect the dots. If you’re one of the few who made it this far, you’re already ahead of 99% of everyone else.
If you care to know why I keep writing despite such a small readership, here’s the answer: writing is learning. If not for my inborn curiosity and thirst for knowledge, I would have been dead a long time ago.
Thank you.
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