Papers of the Week

There are many factors associated with chronic pain, including changes in the nervous and musculoskeletal systems and so on. Recently, it has become clear that the gut microbiota (GM) influences these factors, and there are many reports of GM dysbiosis in patients with chronic pain. However, the relationship between pain and GM remains unclear. Our previous study reported that defecation status, which reflects GM composition, was associated with pain intensity and that this relationship was different for each pain site. Our study investigated the association between pain site and the GM composition of feces in chronic pain patients.