A woman in her 30s might assume the headaches, neck pain or persistent back discomfort she experiences are simply part of a busy life. By her 40s, she may notice that certain aches occur more frequently, while others have become so familiar that she barely mentions them during medical appointments.
For years, pain has often been discussed as something that becomes more common with old age. But a major international study suggests that the story is more complicated—and that much of the increase in pain occurs earlier in adulthood than many people might expect.
Researchers analyzing information from more than 6.1 million people across 118 countries found that women reported pain more frequently than men in every one of the 11 anatomical areas examined.
The study, published October 5, 2026, in Nature Medicine, also found that pain prevalence followed different patterns depending on the body area. Some forms of pain increased steadily into older age, while others peaked much earlier and then declined.
Perhaps most notably, the steepest increases across the studied pain categories generally occurred before age 55.
The findings challenge the idea that pain is primarily a concern for older adults. They also raise important questions about how women experience pain, when prevention and treatment should begin, and why certain symptoms deserve attention long before retirement age.
Researchers Examined Pain Reports From More Than 6 Million People
The study published in Nature Medicine brought together individual-level data from 902 population-based sources, representing 138 research programs conducted between 1990 and 2025.
In total, researchers analyzed information from 6,125,459 people between childhood and very old age. Approximately 55% of participants were female.
The research included information from 118 countries and territories, giving investigators an unusually broad view of how self-reported pain varies across populations.
Rather than studying only people who had already received a medical diagnosis, the researchers examined what participants themselves reported experiencing.
That distinction matters because many people live with pain without ever receiving a formal diagnosis.
Someone may have recurring headaches without seeing a neurologist. Another person may experience persistent knee discomfort but never undergo imaging or receive a specific diagnosis.
By including self-reported pain, the study captured experiences that might otherwise be missed by research focused only on diagnosed medical conditions.
Women Reported More Pain in Every Body Area Examined
The researchers studied pain in 11 anatomical categories: the head, face, neck or shoulder, foot or ankle, hand or wrist, elbow, chest, back, stomach or abdomen, hip, and knee.
Across all 11 categories, women reported pain more frequently than men.
The differences were especially pronounced for certain types of pain.
Women had approximately 83% higher reported prevalence of facial pain, 74% higher prevalence of headache pain, and 60% higher prevalence of stomach or abdominal pain compared with men, based on the study’s reported relative risks.
Those percentages describe relative differences in reported pain prevalence. They do not mean that 83% of women experience facial pain or that 74% experience headaches.
The distinction is important because relative risks can sound more dramatic when they are mistaken for the percentage of people affected.
The researchers also found that women had higher rates of more intense and widespread pain.
Compared with men, women had approximately 52% higher prevalence of high-intensity pain and 50% higher prevalence of generalized pain, as defined in the study.
The results establish a consistent population-level difference in reported pain, although they do not identify one single explanation for that difference.
The Most Surprising Finding May Be When Pain Increases
Many people associate chronic aches and joint problems with their 60s, 70s and 80s.
The new research suggests that waiting until those ages to focus on pain prevention may overlook an important period.
Across the anatomical sites examined, pain prevalence generally increased most rapidly before age 55.
For musculoskeletal problems involving the back, hips and knees, some of the steepest increases occurred between ages 20 and 55.
That means the years when people are building careers, raising children and managing demanding schedules may also be a significant period for the development of pain.
The researchers emphasized that different types of pain followed different age patterns.
Headache prevalence peaked around age 34 in the study’s modeled trajectories, while abdominal pain peaked around age 23.
Neck or shoulder pain peaked much later, around age 62.
Back, hip and knee pain generally continued increasing into older adulthood.
These findings suggest that pain isn’t one condition with one predictable timeline.
The body area, underlying causes and stage of life all matter.
More Pain Doesn’t Always Mean More Severe Pain
Another important distinction involves the difference between experiencing any pain and experiencing pain that is severe or widespread.
The study found that the overall likelihood of reporting pain somewhere in the body generally increased with age.
However, high-intensity pain followed a different pattern.
Researchers defined high-intensity pain as a rating of at least seven on a 10-point scale.
The prevalence of that level of pain peaked around age 50 before declining later in life.
Generalized pain, which involved pain across multiple body regions, peaked around age 70.
Among participants reporting pain, average pain intensity also peaked around age 48 before decreasing in later adulthood.
These findings complicate the assumption that pain inevitably becomes more severe with every passing decade.
They suggest that some of the most difficult pain experiences may occur during middle adulthood.
That doesn’t mean older adults experience less pain in every respect or that symptoms automatically improve with age.
It means different measures of pain can follow different patterns.
Why Women May Experience Pain Differently
The study documents differences between women and men, but it does not establish a single cause.
Pain is influenced by numerous factors, including underlying health conditions, injuries, biological processes, occupational demands, psychological factors, social circumstances and access to healthcare.
Some pain conditions are more common among women, while others affect men and women differently.
Hormonal changes may influence certain pain conditions, but this study did not demonstrate that hormones explain the differences across all 11 body areas.
The researchers also acknowledged that self-reported pain can be affected by differences in how symptoms are interpreted, recalled and communicated.
That doesn’t make reported pain less real.
It means researchers must be careful when comparing responses collected through different surveys, languages and cultural settings.
The study’s strength is its extraordinary scale and broad geographic coverage.
Its limitation is that it cannot fully explain why every observed difference exists.
The Findings Challenge the Idea That Pain Is Simply Part of Getting Older
A common response to recurring discomfort is to assume that it comes with age.
Someone may dismiss a stiff shoulder, persistent back pain or repeated headaches because they believe those problems are unavoidable.
But the study suggests that the timing and location of pain deserve closer attention.
Different conditions require different approaches.
A recurring headache may have a different cause from chronic knee pain. Abdominal discomfort may require a different evaluation from pain in the hands or wrists.
And pain that interferes with work, sleep, mobility or daily responsibilities shouldn’t automatically be dismissed as normal aging.
For women who have spent years adapting their routines around discomfort, the findings may provide a reason to discuss symptoms more thoroughly with a healthcare professional.
The goal isn’t to assume that every ache signals a serious disease.
It’s to recognize that persistent, worsening or unexplained pain deserves an appropriate assessment.
Income and Living Conditions Were Also Connected to Pain
The study examined more than differences between men and women.
Researchers also investigated how pain varied by household income, smoking status, body weight and national development.
Lower household income was associated with higher pain prevalence across the body areas studied.
Smoking was associated with increased prevalence at several sites, while obesity showed particularly strong associations with pain in weight-bearing joints.
For example, obesity was associated with higher prevalence of foot or ankle, knee and hip pain compared with normal-weight categories.
The researchers estimated that smoking, obesity and low income together accounted for approximately 18.3% of pain burden across the studied anatomical sites globally, although the proportion varied considerably by region.
Those findings should not be interpreted as proof that changing one factor will eliminate a person’s pain.
Associations in observational research do not establish that a particular factor caused an individual’s symptoms.
They do suggest that pain prevention and treatment may need to consider social and economic circumstances alongside medical care.
Pain Was Often More Common in Less-Developed Regions Than Expected
One of the study’s broader findings concerned differences between countries.
Researchers found that older adults in countries with lower Human Development Index scores reported substantially more bodily pain than those in highly developed countries.
At older ages, the estimated difference in any bodily pain prevalence reached approximately 30.6 percentage points between the lowest- and highest-development settings.
That finding differed from some estimates based primarily on diagnosed conditions.
The researchers suggested that factors such as physically demanding work, limited rehabilitation services and differences in healthcare access could contribute, but those explanations remain areas for further investigation.
The distinction between diagnosed illness and reported symptoms is especially important in places where people have limited access to medical care.
Someone may experience significant pain without ever receiving a formal diagnosis.
Research that counts only diagnosed conditions may miss part of that burden.
What Women Can Take Away From the Research
The study wasn’t a clinical trial and did not test a new treatment.
It doesn’t provide a specific exercise routine, medication or screening test that every woman should follow.
But it does offer a useful perspective on the importance of paying attention to pain throughout adulthood.
Women experiencing recurring symptoms may benefit from keeping track of where the pain occurs, how frequently it happens, what makes it better or worse and whether it interferes with normal activities.
Those details can help a healthcare professional determine whether further evaluation is needed.
A woman experiencing frequent headaches, for example, may need a different assessment from someone whose primary concern is gradually worsening hip pain.
Sudden severe pain or pain accompanied by concerning symptoms—such as chest pressure, breathing difficulty, new weakness or other neurological changes—may require urgent medical attention.
The larger lesson is that pain should be assessed according to its characteristics and possible causes, not dismissed simply because someone is approaching middle age.
What the Study Cannot Tell Us
The researchers were careful to identify limitations.
Much of the information came from cross-sectional studies, meaning the age patterns describe differences across populations rather than tracking the same people throughout their lives.
The data were collected over a long period, from 1990 through 2025, and the surveys used different questions and recall periods.
Researchers adjusted for those differences where possible, but they could not eliminate every source of variation.
The findings also describe self-reported pain, not necessarily chronic pain lasting for a particular duration.
And the study does not establish that pain prevalence has increased over time.
Its primary purpose was to understand how pain is distributed across ages, body regions, sexes and geographic settings.
Those distinctions are essential when interpreting the results.
Pain Prevention May Need to Begin Earlier Than Many People Think
For women in their 30s, 40s and early 50s, the study offers an important perspective.
Pain is not exclusively an issue of old age.
In many anatomical areas, some of the sharpest increases occur during the same decades when women are managing careers, families, caregiving responsibilities and other demands.
The researchers argue that these patterns may help guide future prevention efforts and improve the way healthcare systems monitor pain.
For individual women, the message is not to expect pain or assume it is inevitable.
It is to take persistent symptoms seriously and seek appropriate care rather than waiting for discomfort to become a permanent part of daily life.
The study’s most significant contribution may be changing how people think about the timing of pain.
Instead of treating it primarily as a problem of later life, the findings suggest that middle adulthood deserves much greater attention.
And for millions of women who have been managing recurring discomfort long before their senior years, that distinction matters.
Original research: Nature Medicine, “Global and regional reference curves for pain across the lifespan in 6.1 million individuals in 118 countries,” October 5, 2026.
Additional resource: Global Pain Benchmarking Tool, developed by the research team to explore the study’s reference patterns.