研究人员发现，女性自我报告的11个身体部位疼痛程度高于男性。
The researchers found women’s self-reported pain across 11 bodily sites was higher than for men.
照片来源：Kinga Krzeminska/Getty Images 研究人员对全球范围内以及人类整个生命周期中的疼痛进行了研究，发现疼痛程度在55岁之前上升最快。一项重要的全球性研究指出，女性报告的疼痛程度高于男性。
Researchers looked at pain around the world and across the human lifespan, finding steepest rise happens before age 55 Women report suffering more pain than men, a major new global study has found.
研究人员测量的所有类型的疼痛都存在这一现象。与此同时，关于性别间疼痛差异的担忧持续存在，这种差异导致女性获得所需止痛药的可能性较低。
That was true for all types of pain the researchers measured, and comes amid continuing concern about the gender pain gap which means women are less likely to be prescribed the pain relief they need.
来自世界各地的研究人员开展了“迄今为止疼痛流行病学领域最大规模的标准化研究之一”。研究数据收集于1990年至2025年间来自118个国家的超过600万人，涵盖年龄从5岁到100岁以上的人群。
Researchers from all over the world carried out “one of the largest harmonization efforts in pain epidemiology to date”. Data was collected from more than 6 million people from 118 countries from 1990 to 2025, and included people from five years old to more than 100.
这项发表在《自然·医学》上的研究探讨了疼痛作为全球首要致残原因，在全球范围内以及人类生命周期中的分布情况。
The research, published in Nature Medicine looked at how pain, as the leading global cause of disability, was distributed both around the world and across the human lifespan.
研究结果显示，女性在11个身体部位——头部、面部、颈部或肩部、脚部或脚踝、手部或手腕、肘部、胸部、背部、胃部或腹部、髋部和膝盖——自我报告的疼痛程度高于男性。其中，头痛、面部疼痛和腹部疼痛的差异尤为显著。
It found women’s self-reported pain across 11 bodily sites – head, face, neck or shoulder, foot or ankle, hand or wrist, elbow, chest, back, stomach or abdomen, hip and knee – was higher than for men. That was particularly true for headache, facial and abdominal pain.
对于男性和女性而言，疼痛程度最急剧的上升发生在55岁之前，随后在75岁或更年长时达到峰值。背部、髋部和膝盖的疼痛在整个生命周期中均有所增加。
For men and women, the most steep increase in pain happened before people turned 55, then peaked at or beyond 75, with back, hip and knee pain increasing across the lifespan.
作者写道，这表明“一生中相当大比例的疼痛负担是在工作年龄阶段形成的”。
That indicated “that a substantial share of lifetime pain burden develops during working-age adulthood”, the authors wrote.
大约40%的参与者报告有背痛，而面部疼痛最为罕见，仅占2%。
Roughly 40% of participants reported back pain, while facial pain was the rarest at 2%.
人类发展指数最低地区的居民，“晚年身体疼痛的患病率”明显更高，且老年群体中下背部疼痛的发病率几乎是其他地区的两倍。
Those in the lowest Human Development Index regions had substantially “higher late-life prevalence of bodily pain”, and almost twice the rates of low back pain in their older age.
高强度疼痛在50岁左右达到峰值，而全身性疼痛则在70岁左右达到峰值。
High-intensity pain peaked at about 50, while generalised pain peaked around 70.
“总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，尽管经历任何疼痛的可能性会随着年龄增长而稳步上升，但最致残的疼痛类型则呈现出倒U形轨迹，在中老年阶段达到峰值后逐渐下降，”研究作者写道。
“Overall, our results suggest that, although the likelihood of experiencing any pain rises steadily with age, the most disabling forms of pain followed an inverted-U trajectory, peaking in mid-to-late adulthood before declining,” the study authors wrote.
“这种区分——即疼痛的累积与疼痛先加剧后缓解之间的差异——对预防与护理在整个人生阶段中应重点关注的领域具有直接影响。”作者指出，目前的估算主要集中在诊断数据上，这可能导致缺乏医疗资源的人群被排除在外，因此他们分析了自我报告的疼痛发生率。他们认为，这可以为更公平的监测和预防工作奠定基础。
“This distinction, between pain accumulation and pain that intensifies and then resolves, has direct implications for where prevention and care should be concentrated across the lifespan.”The authors wrote that current estimates focus on diagnoses, which may mean people with limited healthcare access are left out, which is why they analysed rates of self-reported pain. That could provide a foundation for more equitable monitoring and prevention efforts, they wrote.
“不同表型群体的疼痛轨迹存在显著差异：头痛、腹部和面部疼痛在生命早期达到峰值后逐渐下降，而肌肉骨骼疼痛则通常随着年龄增长而持续增加，”他们写道。
“Trajectories varied markedly by phenotype: headache, abdominal and facial pain peaked earlier in life before declining, whereas musculoskeletal pain generally rose progressively with age,” they wrote.
“在肌肉骨骼部位中，上半身疼痛（包括颈部、肩部和肘部）在中年左右达到峰值，之后逐渐下降；而下半身疼痛（包括背部、髋部和膝盖）则在整个生命周期中持续增加，这与承重部位承受累积性机械负荷和退行性变化的作用更大相一致。”研究发现，全球18.3%的疼痛负担与吸烟、肥胖和低收入家庭有关。这一比例在撒哈拉以南非洲为12.6%，而在东欧则为27.1%。
“Within musculoskeletal sites, upper body pain (including neck, shoulder and elbow) peaked around midlife and declined thereafter, whereas lower body pain (including back, hip and knee) continued to increase across the lifespan, consistent with the greater role of cumulative mechanical and degenerative load at weight-bearing sites.”The study found 18.3% of the global pain burden was due to smoking, obesity and low household incomes. This ranged from 12.6% in sub-Saharan Africa to 27.1% in eastern Europe.
在奥西亚尼亚，6.6%的疼痛可归因于吸烟，而撒哈拉以南非洲为2.5%，东欧为8.5%；11.2%的疼痛与肥胖有关，而中亚和南亚为2.7%，北美为14.6%；另有8%的疼痛与低收入有关，而撒哈拉以南非洲为6.6%，东欧为8.6%。
In Oceania, 6.6% of pain was attributable to smoking compared with 2.5% in sub-Saharan Africa and 8.5% in eastern Europe, while 11.2% of pain was attributable to obesity, compared with 2.7% in central and southern Asia and 14.6% in North America. And 8% was attributable to lower incomes, compared with 6.6% in sub-Saharan Africa and 8.6% in eastern Europe.
作者指出，这项研究存在一些重要的局限性，可能会影响对研究结果的解读，但并未改变整体趋势。这些局限性包括疼痛测量方法的不同、不同地区和年龄组（最年长与最年轻群体）覆盖不均，以及研究描述的是特定年龄组的模式，而非长期追踪同一批人。
The authors noted that there were important limitations on the research which could affect interpretations but did not alter the overall patterns. Those limitations included different ways of measuring pain, uneven coverage across different regions and oldest and youngest age groups, and that they described patterns for particular age groups, rather than following the same people over time.
英国爱丁堡大学生殖健康中心主任安德鲁·霍恩教授称这项研究为一项里程碑式的研究，表明在研究的每一个身体部位，女性经历的疼痛都比男性更多。
Professor Andrew Horne, the director of the Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, described the research as a landmark study, showing that women experience more pain than men at every body site studied.
他说：“疼痛在55岁之前上升最为迅速，而这正是女性从事工作、承担照护责任以及处于生育年龄的时期。这有力地证明了性别间的疼痛差异是真实存在、持续且普遍的现象。然而，女性的疼痛仍然常常被忽视、研究不足且治疗不够。”
“Pain also rises most steeply before age 55, during women’s working, caring and reproductive years. It is strong evidence that the gender pain gap is real, consistent and global. Yet women’s pain is still too often dismissed, under-researched and under-treated,” he said.
“要缩小这一差距，意味着在临床中必须认真对待女性的疼痛，常规按性别分析数据，为研究其生物学和社会原因提供充足资金，并为女性开发更优、更个性化的治疗方案。”
“Closing the gap means taking women’s pain seriously in the clinic, routinely analysing data by sex, properly funding research into the biological and social causes, and developing better, more personalised treatments for women.”
牛津大学儿科神经科学教授丽贝卡·斯莱特教授也对此表示认同。她说：“令人担忧的悖论是，女性经历的疼痛更多，但他们的疼痛也更有可能被忽视、诊断延迟或治疗不足。这项规模庞大的研究表明，女性承受的更高疼痛负担在全身各个部位以及在全球极具多样性的人群中都表现得异常一致。”
Prof Rebeccah Slater, professor of Paediatric Neuroscience at the University of Oxford agreed. “The troubling paradox is that women experience more pain, yet their pain is also more likely to be dismissed, diagnosed late or undertreated,” she said. “This enormous study shows that the higher burden of pain in women is remarkably consistent across the body and in a remarkably diverse global population.”