Back pain appears to predict sleep problems years before they occur among senior men, a new study says.

Older guys suffering from back pain had poorer sleep six years later, researchers recently reported in the journal Innovation and Aging.

Men with back pain tended to fall asleep too early or too late, or were dissatisfied with their sleep quality, results showed.

“If caregivers or loved ones see back pain issues, this can be a warning sign,” lead researcher Soomi Lee, an associate professor of human development and family studies at Penn State, said in a news release.

“Older people should acknowledge their back pain problems so that they can prevent subsequent sleep problems and the other health issues that accompany inadequate sleep, including memory problems, depression, anxiety and falling,” she added.

For the study, researchers tracked 1,055 men who completed two clinical sleep visits six or more years apart. The men answered questionnaires by mail about their back pain every four months between the two sleep study visits.

The team defined sleep problems as irregular sleep, too little sleep, daytime sleepiness and self-reports of sleep satisfaction.

“We know that back pain and sleep are serious issues for older adults,” Lee said. “We studied data collected over several years to understand whether poor sleep could predict back pain or if back pain could predict poor sleep, and we found it was the latter.”

Results showed that earlier back pain predicted a 12% to 25% increase in a man’s sleep problems by the time of their second sleep study.

However, earlier sleep problems did not predict future risk of back pain, researchers found.

Pain itself — either back pain or pain in other sites around the body — might make it increasingly tougher for men to find a comfortable sleeping position, researchers speculated in their study.

It also might be that back pain winds up disrupting sleep by adding to a man's stress or depression, the team added.

Further research will be needed to see if the same result holds among women, Lee said, as well as to verify the link between back pain and sleep problems among men.

However, anyone experiencing back pain should seek out a doctor for treatment, which might include physical therapy or exercise, Lee said.

“Now that we know that back pain precedes sleep problems, it is clearer that pain management may be necessary for maintaining quality sleep and preventing broader health problems in older adults over time,” she said.