The demographic factors of sex, age, and race/ethnicity are well recognized as relevant to pain sensitivity and clinical pain expression.Of these, sex differences have been the most frequently studied, and most of the literature describes greater pain sensitivity for women.The other two factors have been less frequently evaluated, and current literature is not definitive.Taking advantage of the large OPPERA study cohort, we evaluated the association of sex, age, and self-reported race with 34 measures of pressure, mechanical, and thermal pain sensitivity encompassing both threshold and suprathreshold perception.Women were significantly more pain sensitive than men for 29/34 measures.Age effects were small, and only significant for 7/34 measures, however the age range was limited (18-44 y.o.).Race/ethnicity differences varied across groups and pain assessment type.Non-Hispanic whites (NHW) were less pain sensitive than African-Americans (for 21/34 measures), Hispanics (19/34), and Asians (6/34).No pain threshold measure showed significant racial differences, while several suprathreshold pain measures did.This suggests that racial differences are not related to tissue characteristics or inherent nociceptor sensitivity.Rather, the differences observed for suprathreshold pain ratings or tolerance are more likely related to differences in central nociceptive processing, including modulation imposed by cognitive, psychological, and/or affective factors.
from The Journal of Pain http://ift.tt/2fzhb8f
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