ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Precision Medicine
This article is part of the Research TopicMixed Pain: A challenging diseaseView all 6 articles
Increased adiposity and impaired sleep are associated with severity of greater trochanteric pain syndrome: a cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted
Marco Alessandro Minetto1*
Chiara Busso1
Marta Andrighetti1Elisabetta Quilico1John A Shepherd2
Steven Heymsfield3
Angelo Pietrobelli4- 1University of Turin, Turin, Italy
- 2Department of Epidemiology, University of Hawaii Cancer Center, Honolulu, United States
- 3Pennington Biomedical Research Centre, Baton Rouge, United States
- 4Universita degli Studi di Verona, Verona, Italy
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Background: To investigate the feasibility and clinical validity of a digital anthropometric approach for body size and composition assessment in patients with greater trochanteric pain syndrome and to examine physical, sleep, and pain characteristics in different subgroups of patients. Methods: A convenience sample of 62 female patients was recruited. Administration of questionnaires, pain drawing analysis, evaluation of physical performance, body size and composition assessments were performed. Results: Pain intensity was significantly higher during evening (median value of 5) compared to both morning and afternoon (median values of 4). The median values of the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) global score and of sleep duration were 9.0 and 6.0 hours, respectively. The median values of body fat percentage and fat mass index were 35.2% and 9.4 kg/m2. Significant differences were observed between different subgroups of patients (low vs high severity of tendinopathy-related disability) for the following variables: PSQI global score and proportion of patients with poor sleep quality (PSQI score >5), body mass index, waist circumference, body roundness index, hip circumference, and fat mass index. Conclusion: Tendinopathic patients presented an impairment of sleep quality and quantity and an increased central adiposity that can be documented through clinimetric and body composition assessments.
Keywords: Body Composition, Digital anthropometry, Obesity, Pain drawing, physical performance, Tendinopathy
Received: 03 Oct 2025; Accepted: 10 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Minetto, Busso, Andrighetti, Quilico, Shepherd, Heymsfield and Pietrobelli. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Marco Alessandro Minetto, marco.minetto@unito.it
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