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Back Pain Statistics

UK Government Statistics – The Back Pain Epidemic

  • 40% of 40-year-olds have at least one degenerated disc
  • 90% of 60-year-olds have signs of disc degeneration
  • 31,000,000 lost working days per annum

World Health Organisation Statistics

person with low back pain

Low Back Pain

  • affects 619 million people worldwide
  • expected to increase to 843 million by 2050
  • the single biggest cause of disability in the world

Incidence Of Low Back Pain

  • Age 18 to 29 28.4%
  • Age 30 to 44 35.2%
  • Age 45 to 64 44.3%
  • over 65 45.6%

The Bedrest Falicy Debunked

According to the Harvard School of Medicine the old remedy of 6 to 12 weeks bedrest for low back pain and sciatica that was regularly prescribed until recently had little or no physical benefit and had a negative effect on mental health.

Why? Discs need to metabolise to heal up and to metabolise they need to absorb nutrients when in a non-weight bearing position (lying down) and to squeeze out waste metabolites in a weight bearing position.

Prolonged bed rest clogs up and disrupts disc metabolism. Intermittent rest and activity is the best way to stimulate disc recovery.

person sleeping in bed

8 Hours Sleep?

Research by historian Roger Ekrich of Virginia Teck suggests that 2 blocks of 4 hours sleep used to be the norm and that this only evolved into an 8-hour block in the 1920’s. Two blocks of 4 hours sleep with a weight bearing period in the middle would have helped disc health by allowing 2 metabolic cycles in 24 hours rather than the 1 that is now the norm.

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