Robbins J A, Qi L, Garcia L, Younger J W, Seldin M F
Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis.
Eur J Pain. 2015 May;19(5):601-10. doi: 10.1002/ejp.680. Epub 2015 Mar 5.
African Americans are reported to be more sensitive to pain than European Americans. Pain sensitivity has been shown to be genetically linked in animal models and is likely to be in humans.
Exactly, 11,239 self-identified African American post-menopausal women enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative had percentage African ancestry determined by ancestry informative markers, "Pain Construct" measurements and covariate information. They answered five questions about specific types and location of pain, such as joint, neck, low back, headache and urinary. They also answered two questions which were used to derive a "Pain Construct", a measure of general pain scored on a scale of 1-100. Associations were tested in linear regression models adjusting for age, self-reported medical conditions, neighbourhood socio-economic status, education and depression.
In the unadjusted model of the five specific types of pain measures, greater pain perception was associated with a higher proportion of African ancestry. However, some of the specific types of pain measures were no longer associated with African ancestry after adjustment for other study covariates. The Pain Construct was statistically significantly associated with African ancestry in both the unadjusted [β = -0.132, 95% confidence interval (CI) = -099 to -0.164; r = -0.075, 95% CI -0.056 to -0.093] and the adjusted models (β = -0.069 95% CI = -0.04 to -0.10).
Greater African ancestry was associated with higher levels of self-reported pain, although this accounted for only a minor fraction of the overall variation in the Pain Construct.
据报道，非裔美国人比欧裔美国人对疼痛更敏感。在动物模型中，疼痛敏感性已被证明与基因有关，在人类中可能也是如此。
确切地说，11239名自我认定为非裔美国人的绝经后女性参与了女性健康倡议，她们通过祖先信息标记、“疼痛结构”测量和协变量信息来确定非洲血统的百分比。她们回答了五个关于疼痛的具体类型和部位的问题，如关节、颈部、下背部、头痛和泌尿系统疼痛。她们还回答了两个用于得出“疼痛结构”的问题，这是一种以1 - 100分进行评分的一般疼痛测量方法。在调整了年龄、自我报告的医疗状况、邻里社会经济地位、教育程度和抑郁程度的线性回归模型中对相关性进行了测试。
在五种特定类型疼痛测量的未调整模型中，更高的疼痛感知与更高比例的非洲血统相关。然而，在调整了其他研究协变量后，一些特定类型的疼痛测量与非洲血统不再相关。在未调整模型[β = -0.132，95%置信区间（CI）= -0.164至 -0.099；r = -0.075，95% CI -0.093至 -0.056]和调整模型（β = -0.069，95% CI = -0.10至 -0.04）中，“疼痛结构”与非洲血统在统计学上均有显著关联。
更高比例的非洲血统与更高水平的自我报告疼痛相关，尽管这仅占“疼痛结构”总体变异的一小部分。
