Does it seem like a lot of your relatives have problems with their lower backs? A study indicates that symptomatic lumbar disc disease may have a genetic component. This means that you very well may have gotten your bad back from your parents, or grandparents. It also means that your kids might be at risk for having back problems as well.
Symptomatic lumbar disc disease is a condition that is caused by degeneration or herniation of the discs that are located in the lower part of the spinal column. This can happen due to normal changes that occur as a result of the aging process, but can also happen as the result of an injury. The spine is made up of several interlocking bones, called vertebrae. In between each of these bones is a soft, compressible disc. It is these discs that allow the spine to flex, bend, twist, and move. Normally, a person is not consciously aware of how their vertebrae and discs are functioning.
However, if you do have problems with your lower back it may be almost impossible to focus on anything else other than the pain that is coming from your back on a bad day. When spinal discs degenerate, it can cause pain not only in the back, but also in a person’s neck and shoulders. However, not all people who have degenerated discs end up experiencing pain. It is unknown exactly what the reason is why some people experience back pain, and others do not.
A study was done on more than two million people, from data that was found in the Utah Population Database. This database contains health and genealogical information from families in Utah. The researchers focused on data from over one thousand individuals who had some form of lumbar disc disease, and who had at least three generations of genealogical data available in the Utah Population Database.
The researchers found that people who had lumbar disc disease were more likely to have family members who also had the same condition, when compared with people who did not have lumbar disc disease. If a person has a family member who has lumbar disc disease, then the relative risk for that person to also develop lumbar disc disease is elevated. The implication is that these findings suggest that there is a genetic basis to symptomatic lumbar disc disease. This might explain why it seems that bad backs run in families. It is worth noting that the results of this study do not rule out environmental reasons for back problems.
Image by Rick Kimpel on Flickr