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Cool New Research on Low Back Pain – and Why It’s Time to Move on From the Alignment Narrative
As many of you know, I’m a bit of a pain science geek 🤓, which is why I offer a full course called Pain Science for Yogis for members of my yoga platform.
Understanding the foundations of modern pain science is such an important part of teaching and practicing yoga in an evidence-based way.
I’m writing this blog post today because a new, noteworthy study just came out that fits right into this bigger conversation, and I wanted to share a quick breakdown of it here!
The Study at a Glance
This study just came out in the January 2026 issue of the European Journal of Pain: Association Between Systemic Immune-Inflammation Index and Low Back Pain in American Adults.
This study looked at the relationship between low back pain and something called chronic low-grade systemic inflammation. Before we talk about the findings, it helps to understand what “inflammation” means in this context.
Local Inflammation vs Systemic Inflammation
Most of us hear the word “inflammation” and think of the classic scenario of a sprained ankle that becomes swollen and tender. That is local inflammation that happens at the site of an injury.
But chronic, low-grade systemic inflammation is very different.
It refers to a subtle, body-wide state where the immune system is a little more activated than it needs to be on a regular basis. It’s not dramatic, and you wouldn’t see or feel swelling, but it shows up in the blood as a pattern in certain immune cells.
This low grade inflammatory state is linked with poorer general and metabolic health and tends to be influenced by things like stress, poor sleep, sedentary routines, smoking, nutrition patterns, and other common lifestyle factors.
What the Researchers Found
This new study found that people with higher levels of this systemic inflammation marker were more likely to report having low back pain.
This is a correlation, not necessarily a cause and effect relationship, but it adds to the growing body of research showing that pain is connected to our whole physiological state – not just to what is happening in one localized tissue.
In other words, this pattern suggests that our broader health and lifestyle factors may play a meaningful role in how pain shows up for us. (Hint, hint: it’s not all about how we move! 🚶♂️)
Why This Matters for Us as Yogis
For our science-based yoga community, this reinforces something we often talk about around here. 😃
Pain and injury are complex, multifactorial experiences. They are not simply the result of doing a yoga pose with the exact “right” or “wrong” alignment, having “good” or “bad” posture, or moving in “correct” or “incorrect” ways.
Besides, yoga is a low load movement practice with low injury rates (according to research on yoga injuries!), and the idea that tiny variations in alignment on the yoga mat are main drivers of pain does not reflect what research shows.
A Quick Reminder About the Biopsychosocial Model of Pain
The experience of pain is often described as a biopsychosocial (BPS) phenomenon. The “bio” part includes much more than biomechanics, which refers to how we move. When we talk about the “bio” part of the BPS model, it’s more helpful to think in terms of biology rather than biomechanics.
This “biology” includes our immune system, stress hormones, sleep, nutrition, genetics, metabolic health, and general physiology. 🧬
The psychological part of the BPS model includes things like our beliefs, expectations, and emotions. The social part includes our environment, support system, socioeconomic status, and overall life context.
All of these factors interact in a way that is unique to each person.
The Big Picture Takeaway
So this new study does not change anything we already know in our science-based yoga community here, but it gives us another piece of evidence pointing in the same direction.
Pain is not a simple alignment or movement problem. It is a whole person experience shaped by both our inner physiology and our outer life circumstances.
And in low load contexts like yoga, thoughtful practice, movement variability, and empowering, exploratory teaching tend to matter much more than striving for “perfect” alignment.
It’s always exciting when new research helps us see the bigger picture of the human body and movement a little more clearly, and this study adds one more meaningful piece to that puzzle! 🧩
Reference:
Yuyang, Chen. “Association Between Systemic Immune‐Inflammation Index and Low Back Pain in American Adults: Evidence From a Large Population‐Based Study.” European Journal of Pain 30.1 (2026): e70179.
