Weight loss improves pain throughout the body

"Andrew Schrepf is a research investigator at Michigan Medicine's Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center. "Where they lost the pain was not confined just to those joints that tend to hurt when a person is really obese, like the hips and the lower back and the knees, but it was actually all over their body that they showed improvement," says Shrepf.

The findings suggest that obesity may affect pain, depression, and fatigue through a link to the central nervous system. His team is planning followup studies to learn about that mechanism."