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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Being pudgy as child may not only leave painful memories of school yard jokes it could also leave lasting health consequences. A new study shows being overweight as a child could cause early degeneration of the spine.
Researchers examined images of the spines of 188 adolescents who complained of back pain. The images showed more than half (52.1 percent) of the patients had an abnormality in their lower spine, mostly affecting the discs, or the spongy cushions between spinal bones.
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The researchers were also able to determine the body mass index (BMI) for 106 of those patients. Fifty-four were found to have a BMI grater than the 75th percentile for age, 68.5 percent of who had abnormal spines. Only 34.6 percent of the children at or below a healthy weight had abnormal spines.
"This is the first study to show an association between increased body mass index (BMI) and disc abnormalities in children," Judah G. Burns, M.D., lead author and a fellow in diagnostic neuroradiology at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York City, was quoted as saying. "In children, back pain is usually attributed to muscle spasm or sprain," Dr. Burns added. "It is assumed that disc disease does not occur in children, but my experience says otherwise."
Source: The Radiological Society of North America Annual Meeting, November 29 - December 4 2009, Chicago, IL
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