Health: Pain increases fastest before age 55 (Nature Medicine)
6 October 2026
Pain may not increase linearly with age, with the sharpest rises occurring before the age of 55, according to a global analysis of more than six million people published in Nature Medicine. The findings could help researchers to compare pain across populations and improve global pain monitoring and prevention.
Pain is a leading cause of disability worldwide, but there is no standard way to compare self-reported pain across ages and regions. Existing estimates often focus on diagnosed conditions, which may overlook pain among people with limited access to healthcare.
Matt Fillingim, Etienne Vachon-Presseau, and colleagues analysed self-reported pain data collected between 1990 and 2025 from 6,125,459 people aged 5 to over 100 years, across 118 countries and territories. Pain prevalence ranged from around 2% for facial pain to 40% for back pain. Pain was higher in women than men across all 11 body areas studied, with the largest differences seen for facial pain, headaches, and stomach or abdominal pain.
Across all body areas pain prevalence rose most sharply before age 55, although patterns differed by body area: headaches and abdominal pain peaked earlier in life, while back, hip, and knee pain continued to increase with age. From age 40, pain anywhere in the body, joint, and back pain increased more rapidly in countries with lower Human Development Index (HDI) values. By age 80 or older, the prevalence of any bodily pain was around 31 percentage points higher in countries with lower HDI values than in those with higher HDI values, and low back pain was nearly twice as common. Known risk factors, including smoking, obesity and low income, explained less of the pain burden in lower-development settings; the reasons for these higher levels of pain are unclear.
The authors suggest that pain prevention may need to start earlier in life and be tailored to different regions. However, most data were collected at a single point in time, so the data show differences between age groups rather than changes in the same people as they age.
- Article
- Open access
- Published: 05 October 2026
Fillingim, M., Tanguay-Sabourin, C., Neuert, L. et al. Global and regional reference curves for pain across the lifespan in 6.1 million individuals in 118 countries. Nat Med (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-026-04696-w
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