How to relieve a bad back? You may want to sit down before you read this

When you are suffering from a bad back, it is tempting to give everything a try — from popping painkillers to booking an acupuncture session.

But new research suggests that you might be better off saving the effort and money, as almost all common treatments do very little to help relieve ­lower back pain.

A team of scientists at the University of New South Wales in Sydney found that only one in ten of the treatments offered for back pain actually made a difference. They reviewed data from 301 clinical trials looking at 56 types of treatment offered for bad backs. This included drugs such as opioids and paracetamol, as well as non-pharmacological treatments including exercise and massage.

The only thing that definitely helped with acute or short-term lower back pain was non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ­ibuprofen. Even then the pain relief was only ­marginally better than that achieved with placebo, or dummy, pills.

Several treatments including exercises, steroid injections and paracetamol were found to be ineffective.

For chronic back pain — defined as pain that lasts more than 12 weeks — there was evidence that five treatments helped — exercise, spinal manipulative therapy, taping, antidepressants and a type of drug called transient receptor potential vanilloid 1.

However, even these were found to have “slight” or “small” reductions in pain compared with administering a ­placebo drug.

Back pain affects 80 per cent of people at some point in their life and it is often difficult to pinpoint a cause.

Writing in the journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, the lead author, Dr Aidan Cashin, said: “Only one treatment for acute low back pain and five treatments for chronic low back pain had at least moderate certainty evidence for providing statistically significant reductions in pain intensity compared with placebo.

Treatments assessed included ­reflexology and ­massage

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“The current evidence shows that one in ten non-surgical and non-interventional treatments for low back pain are [effective], providing only small analgesic­ effects beyond placebo.”

The study reviewed trials involving thousands of participants in total, ­grading the certainty of the evidence as to how individual treatments helped, and was “the most comprehensive ­summary of evidence” to date of back treatment.

Treatments assessed included ­reflexology, exercise, ­massage, osteopathy, antidepressants, muscle relaxants and opioids.

The study said that the quality of ­evidence for most treatments was poor, as many available trials reported ­inconsistent results, making it difficult to ­recommend future ­avenues for research and treatment.

“Our review did not find reliable evidence of large effects­ for any of the included treatments, which is ­consistent with clinical guidelines and our previous review,” they said.

“There is a clear need for large, high-quality, placebo-controlled trials to reduce ­uncertainty in efficacy estimates for many non-surgical and non-interventional treatments.”

Lower back pain is very common but usually improves within a few weeks. It is often non-specific — meaning the underlying­ cause may not be obvious. It can be caused by a pulled muscle or a trapped nerve.

The NHS says there are things you can do to ease the pain, including staying active, taking ibuprofen, using an ice pack and doing stretches.