16 comments

  • mghackerlady1 hour ago
    If 99% of adults have an abnormality, it ceases to be abnormal regardless of its effects
    • Insanity57 minutes ago
      That&#x27;s actually what the article points out. But I do think the language of normal vs abnormal obfuscates some of the intent. It&#x27;s a &#x27;deviation from healthy baseline&#x27; that they&#x27;re talking about, and there are multiple such deviations in the grouped &#x27;anomalies&#x27;.<p>From the article:<p><i>The language in particular should change given that “abnormalities” are ubiquitous—thus normal—and shouldn’t be described in terms that indicate a need for repair, like “tear.”</i>
    • amelius47 minutes ago
      99% of adults have abnormal faces, they all look different!
      • mghackerlady37 minutes ago
        Ok, in that case it&#x27;s safe to say that the normal is highly variant but generally follows a pattern. People generally have a nose in the center of their face so that&#x27;d be normal, but one on the forehead would be abnormal unless everyone suddenly also had forehead noses
      • jaccola4 minutes ago
        I would hate to be one of the ~80 million people in the world who have identical faces
      • iso163117 minutes ago
        Relevant history from the US Airforce in the 1940s when they tried to build a cockpit for the average pilot and failed<p>I find this an interesting take on the story<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;polkas.github.io&#x2F;posts&#x2F;cursedim&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;polkas.github.io&#x2F;posts&#x2F;cursedim&#x2F;</a>
      • leni53643 minutes ago
        Except that one guy.
        • pinkmuffinere26 minutes ago
          Dude I know exactly who you&#x27;re talking about, that guy without a unique face! Weird as hell that he&#x27;s the only one...
        • newsclues31 minutes ago
          Everyone is abnormal compared to yourself.
    • brandall1053 minutes ago
      Right, it&#x27;s clearly aging related deterioration. It&#x27;s like saying facial wrinkles are an abnormality.
    • dijit36 minutes ago
      I think the conclusion they&#x27;re eluding to in the article is that: &quot;if MRI says 99% of people have abnormalities, MRI is not trustworthy&quot;.
    • diydsp49 minutes ago
      Yes in one sense, but it also points to the insufficency of &quot;normalness&quot;. See also: The Average Soldier.
      • hinkley39 minutes ago
        There’s a famous case study in design about the Average Pilot - they were making airplanes than nobody could fly well because nobody was average enough in all physical dimensions to be comfortable in the aircraft. They had to design for ranges that the equipment could adjust through.<p>Even then when I was a kid I knew a guy who wanted to join the air force and he had a growth spurt that made him too tall.
        • alistairSH23 minutes ago
          More of the history of &quot;avenge pilots&quot; here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;99percentinvisible.org&#x2F;episode&#x2F;on-average&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;99percentinvisible.org&#x2F;episode&#x2F;on-average&#x2F;</a>
    • francisofascii1 hour ago
      only if the abnormality is in the same spot
    • CGMthrowaway33 minutes ago
      Abnominal (not abdominal)
    • kingkawn24 minutes ago
      Not if they are all different and produce negative effects
    • cies51 minutes ago
      Dunno man. When enough people overweight, 1-2 alcoholic drink become healthy (alcohol is a blood thinner): this happened, but as we know now it&#x27;s not true.
      • Qem46 minutes ago
        &gt; alcohol is a blood thinner<p>Source?
        • hinkley37 minutes ago
          Alcohol reduces clotting factors in the blood. This is known.<p>Doctors mostly tell you not to drink because it’ll fuck with the anesthesia math and bad anesthesia doses can kill you just as dead as a surgical mistake and probably moreso. But it’ll also make you bleed more.<p>If you need courage to show up to surgery they’ll give you a prescription for a single dose of a benzo. Which is better than liquid courage anyway.
    • ASalazarMX1 hour ago
      &quot;1% of adults over 40 have abnormally normal shoulders&quot;
  • laurex36 minutes ago
    Given that most commenters do not seem to have read the article perhaps the headline could be more explicit about &#x27;MRIs find &quot;abnormalities&quot; but they seem to have no relationship to actual health problems&quot;
  • kbelder1 hour ago
    Who&#x27;s the freak without an abnormality?
    • int27h-tsr1 minute ago
      A statistical error. All humans are slightly asymmetrical. Most shoulder problems begin at foot and&#x2F;or hip though.
    • diydsp48 minutes ago
      Im guessing certain gym rats who also dont desk&#x2F;computer work?
      • elzbardico27 minutes ago
        I would strongly bet against gym rats not having some should abnormality. If anything, I&#x27;d expect them to have more issues with their tendons and ligaments.
      • laughing_man47 minutes ago
        More likely someone who&#x27;s been in a coma for the last ten years.
    • bogzz43 minutes ago
      Oh hey it&#x27;s me, I&#x27;m the conformist. Stop picking on me.
  • racl1011 hour ago
    Most of my shoulder issues are sleep related since I sleep on my side. Getting a body pillow system, was costly but kinda worth it. Helps with shoulder and GERD. Only issue is that it&#x27;s kinda warm and I like to sleep cool.
    • mgiampapa53 minutes ago
      The issue with those inclined pillows with the arm hole in them is that they can be a really hard angle for a side sleeper to be at. It makes my back and hips hurt way worse than my shoulder.
    • dralley47 minutes ago
      Any recommendations? I have GERD and generally sleep on my back, which helps but isn&#x27;t perfect.
    • cactusplant737426 minutes ago
      Cervical radiculopathy can cause shoulder pain. I have experienced this quite a bit and it&#x27;s probably also because of my sleeping style. I wouldn&#x27;t get an MRI unless I was planning to have surgery.
    • ASalazarMX58 minutes ago
      &gt; was costly but kinda worth it<p>This doesn&#x27;t inspire confidence, but I guess any improvement that mitigates pain is nice.<p>But seriously, the article addressesd that<p>&gt; The authors argue that the findings suggest clinicians should rethink MRI findings, changing not just how they’re used, but also how they’re explained to patients. The language in particular should change given that “abnormalities” are ubiquitous—thus normal—and shouldn’t be described in terms that indicate a need for repair, like “tear.”
  • nickjj31 minutes ago
    Do they define if this relates to anything noticeable in your day to day?<p>For example, I can put my right hand above my shoulder and left hand near my lower back and easily connect both hands behind my back with fully interlocked fingers by converging in the middle. They reach to the other hand&#x27;s palm.<p>But I can only barely touch my fingers with both hands if I switch it up so my left hand is up top.<p>I have no pain or day to day mobility issues but something is lopsided. Is that what they consider abnormal?
  • 0x1ch6 minutes ago
    Just hit my mid twenties. Want to say I started having some shoulder issues around 20 years old. Although correlation =! causation, I largely think this is because of my lifelong computer usage and PC gaming. It doesn&#x27;t bother me all the time, but every few months something will change up and it comes back. Surprisingly, my wrists and hands are completely fine, no carpal tunnel or anything similar.
    • SoftTalker0 minutes ago
      Yes, sitting slightly hunched up with your hands in front of you on a keyboard for 8-10 hours a day will screw up your shoulder mobility over time.
  • lysace6 minutes ago
    Evolution doesn&#x27;t really bother with 40+ year olds.
  • downrightmike7 minutes ago
    100% of all things that do not asexually reproduce are mutants
  • Glyptodon54 minutes ago
    I don&#x27;t know what causes it, but even without major issues I think a lot of people continually loose range of motion in the shoulder as they age. So this doesn&#x27;t surprise me.
  • daringrain3278126 minutes ago
    Reading this title made me sit up in my chair.
  • radicalbyte57 minutes ago
    I have three kids and they&#x27;ve messed up my dominant schoulder (left).
    • darth_avocado17 minutes ago
      I have three dogs and they’ve messed up my dominant shoulder, back and leg
    • p00dles52 minutes ago
      From walking around holding them with your left arm when they were babies, or from something else?
      • radicalbyte14 minutes ago
        Walking&#x2F;carrying at all crazy hours once they were &gt;30kg. Holding 40kg of sick kid around is fun. Ours all refused to sit in the stroller very early which is what made it so much worse (our oldest was two, the other two refused point blank the second they could walk).
      • dhaivat21 minutes ago
        not OP but - walking, carrying, holding, being pulled in random directions, catching kids when they jump at you from unexpected places, kids using your arms to practice tug-of-war&#x2F;rock-climbing, pushing (empty) stroller with one hand, and carrying kid with other....
  • baxtr44 minutes ago
    What about the other 1%? I feel for them.
  • abe941 hour ago
    related discussion here - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=47008607">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=47008607</a>
  • tiahura1 hour ago
    Even though they never have any neck pain, many shoulder issues are actually caused by pinched nerves in the cervical spine.
  • TacticalCoder42 minutes ago
    [flagged]
  • Flavius1 hour ago
    You call it &quot;abnormality&quot;, I call it evolution. We are not the same.
    • dylan6041 hour ago
      How many generations of constant bent over posture staring at a device before that&#x27;s just built into the species?
      • plufz1 hour ago
        Im not sure people with bad posture get more offspring than others. :)
        • dylan60452 minutes ago
          The pickins are getting slim though. I don&#x27;t know anyone in their 20s that doesn&#x27;t sit hunched over staring at a screen for a large portion of their day while stipulating I don&#x27;t know any where near all 20 somethings. Just one person&#x27;s observations
      • mgiampapa51 minutes ago
        If I learned anything at Buy N Large University, AR screens in eyeware may be huge.