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The hours we spend browsing our smartphones seem to change our skulls. This is perhaps the reason why some people – especially the youngest ones – develop a strange bone spike just above their neck.
The skull bump – known as the outer occipital protuberance – is sometimes so big that you can feel it by pressing your fingers on the base of your skull.
"I've been a clinician for 20 years and, more and more only, for a decade, I've discovered that my patients had this growth on the skull," said David Shahar, University Health Scientist. from the Sunshine Coast, Australia. told the BBC a fascinating article on the evolution of the human skeleton. [10 Amazing Things We Learned About Humans in 2018]
No cause-and-effect relationship has been identified, but it is possible that the peak comes from the fact that one constantly bends the neck at uncomfortable angles to look at smart devices. The human head is heavy and weighs about 10 pounds. (4.5 kilograms) and watching it down to look at funny cat pictures (or whatever the time spent on your smartphone) can tire the nape of the neck.
Neck text can increase the pressure on the point where the neck muscles bind to the skull, and the body probably reacts by depositing a new bone, which leads to this thorny bump, Shahar told the BBC. This peak distributes the weight of the head over a larger area, he said.
In a 2016 study in the Journal of Anatomy, Shahar and a colleague examined x-rays of 218 young patients aged 18 to 30 to determine how many people had these bumps. Regular tips should be at least 5 mm (0.2 inch) and widened tips 10 mm (0.4 inch).
In total, 41% of the group had an enlarged tip and 10%, a particularly large tip measuring at least 20 mm (0.7 inches), found the doctors. In general, enlarged peaks were more common in men than in women. The largest peak belonged to a man and exceeded 35.7 mm (1.4 inches).
Another study by Shahar and a co-researcher of 1,200 people aged 18 to 86 found that these peaks were more common among youths. Enlarged peaks appeared in 33% of the group, but participants aged 18 to 30 were significantly more likely to have these peaks than older generations, they found.
These bone peaks should stay here, Shahar said. "Imagine if you have stalactites and stalagmites, if nobody disturbs them, they will just keep growing," he told the BBC. Fortunately, these peaks rarely cause medical problems. However, if you are experiencing discomfort, try to improve your posture, he said.
Originally published on Science live.
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