Back Pain 101 – Spine Design

Back Pain 101 question:

To simplify how back pain is exacerbated by our skeletal and muscular systems, think of yourself as an engineer designing a suspension bridge support system that needs to be flexible and carries most of its weight at the front. Where would you put the cushioning, support, and reinforcements? Even if you’ve never built a bridge before, you probably know the answer to this question: You would place the reinforcements and other supporting mechanisms at the front of the structure because this is where the stress is. However, when it comes to our back, the strongest muscles and the thickest cushions are behind us, not in front of us.

Back Pain and the Evolution of the Human Spine

Although the human spine evolved over millions of years to support a creature that walked upright (we were likely back pain free before that!), our spine still carries with it traces of our ancestry. For most primates, the spine serves as a “suspension bridge” from which all other structures and vital organs hang down. The primate spine is quite efficient when used this way, but the human spine went from being a horizontal suspension bridge to a vertical support column – a very dramatic shift. While our spine is definitely better suited for vertical support than, say, a chimp’s spine, our spine is more like a random compromise between suspension bridge and column than a completely different structure from that of our primate cousins. When you add our evolutionary disadvantages together with our modern lifestyle, you might say we are structurally fated to experience significant back pain issues (Source: PBS.org ). Read more on Back Pain 101 – Spine Design…

10 Common Causes of Back Pain

Back pain is almost unavoidable. With an already weak back structure, it doesn’t take much for us to hurt our backs. Millions of Americans suffer from chronic back pain, but the underlying causes of back pain are relatively few. Take a look at these ten most common causes of back pain, and see if you recognize the causes for your own back pain:

1. Back Pain and Obesity

Here’s a curious statistic: The reported incidence of chronic low back pain in North Carolina rose from 3.9% of the population in 1992 to 10.2% of the population in 2006. What accounted for this near tripling of chronic back pain? Researchers couldn’t pinpoint one single cause, but they strongly suspect that the rise in back pain correlates to the rise in obesity (Source: WebMD.com). When you are overweight or obese, your back has to carry more weight than it was designed to. This constant stress on the back makes it far more prone to injury and back pain.

2. Stress and Depression and Back Pain

Another possibility the researchers involved in the North Carolina study suggested as a cause for back pain is rising rates of depression. Depression and stress are both strongly associated with back pain.

3. Static Posture and Back Pain

A “static posture” means sitting or standing in the same way for hours at a time. In other words, modern white collar jobs, which mostly consist of sitting at a desk and working on the computer and/or phone, are very bad for the back and can easily cause back pain. Solutions for this back pain problem include standing while talking on the phone, changing your desk chair or placement of your computer, and taking frequent breaks. Read more on 10 Common Causes of Back Pain…