Why do we humans alone suffer so much from back pain ?
We come back to the same question that we asked in the previous chapter – why do we humans alone suffer so much from back pain as compared to all other animals. Back pain is extremely common in today's society. In fact back pain is one of the most common reasons why people seek medical care.
The increasing incidence of back pain, particularly in the 20th and 21st centuries is undoubtedly related to our sedentary lifestyle. As we have evolved socially from farming societies to our current technological status, the demands placed on the human body have changed. When humans had to be physically active to earn a livelihood such as farming or hunting, back pain was virtually unheard of. Till the time that we, the human race, were hunters or farmers and on our feet most of the time, this arrangement of bony blocks for the backbone was fine. This is because the physical activity of hunting or farming involves usage of the muscles and connecting tissues (ligaments and tendons) around the spine thereby strengthening them to provide support to the spinal column.
Even today, farmers and those engaged in physical work are less affected by back pain than urban blue-collared executives. Physical activity strengthens the muscles and ligaments of the spine. The day we decided to spend our lives sitting down and stopped using these muscles, we have created nothing but problems for our spines and ourselves. A fixed posture such as bending forwards while sitting stresses the spinal joints, discs, ligaments and as time passes, the body reacts to this stress resulting in loss of joint mobility, degenerative changes in the joints and intervertebral discs.
In people who sit hunched in front of computer and TV screens for long hours, the paraspinal muscles weaken due to disuse. Ligaments and tendons are similarly affected. Disuse leads to wasting of muscle tissues. Disuse and wasting of the paraspinal, buttock and back muscles is also seen in the case of taxi and truck drivers and desk jobbers like accountants and clerks, call centre and data entry employees, check out staff in supermarkets, accountants, software engineers and just about everyone in the IT industry. WOW!! That’s half or more of the entire working human population!
Slouching in chairs
Sitting puts almost twice the pressure on intervertebral discs as standing. Sitting with rounded shoulders and a hunched back – known as slouching – adds considerably to this pressure. Since the muscles and ligaments are the main components holding up the vertebrae, the loss of power means that the weight bearing responsibility is shifted to the bony parts of the spinal column. This poses a tremendous strain on the spine and is responsible for disc problems such as disc degeneration and disc prolapse. Thus it can more or less be safely said that in most cases, back pain is a man-made disorder.
-------- "Say Goodbye to Back Pain" by Dr. V. Ranjan
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