If you are using PHP with mysql, there is another work around.  PHP has a function called, register_shutdown_function, which will execute a function during the shutdown of processing a script file. So if we add an UPDATE LOW_PRIORITY sql statement wrapped in a function that is passed to register_shutdown_function, we can allow the user to receive the page without delay while the UPDATE statement waits until all locks on the table has been release before proceeding.

function update_delayed()
{
$sql = "UPDATE LOW_PRIORITY table_name SET col1 = 'something'";
mysql_query($sql, $conn);
}

register_shutdown_function('update_delayed');


I wonder if there are even better ways to handle this problem.