If 99% of adults have an abnormality, it ceases to be abnormal regardless of its effects

On the one hand, that's the point of the article. That it ceases to be a useful diagnostic indicator.

On the other hand, if there are 100 places in the shoulder where you can have an abnormality, and most people have just one or a couple but the other 98-99 are normal, then each one individually really is abnormal.

So it's complicated, and then it becomes important to figure out which abnormalities are medically relevant, in which combinations, etc.

I went to a doctor for something unrelated and ended up getting an MRI that happened to show my upper spine. The neurologist read it and determined that I have a Chiari I malformation[0]. I have no symptoms from this whatsoever. I never have. It's unlikely that I ever will. If it weren't for the MRI, I'd never have known.

Doctors use to think that the degree of it that I have meant I'd have problems with it. After all, people who came in with the symptoms and then had an MRI or CT scan tended to show that level of herniation. Thus, it was assumed, that level of herniation was considered a diagnostic indicator. And then MRIs became cheaper and more accessible, and patients had them for all sorts of other reasons — like I did. Doctors discovered that the degree of "malformation" I have is very common among asymptomatic adults. In fact, you're many times more likely to be perfect fine with it than to experience symptoms.

Well, huh. That doesn't sound like much of a malformation anymore. Or at least, by itself it doesn't mean anything, other than that perhaps you're more likely to have problems than otherwise. On its own? It's more of a normal variation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiari_malformation

That's actually what the article points out. But I do think the language of normal vs abnormal obfuscates some of the intent. It's a 'deviation from healthy baseline' that they're talking about, and there are multiple such deviations in the grouped 'anomalies'.

From the article:

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.”

It's a poor term but it's talking about a healthy baseline for any human as far as I'm aware. It's not adjusted for expected deterioration due to age. 100% of organs eventually fail if given enough time, but it's still fine to call the resulting failed organ a defect.

Presumably, some of this is just it's pretty damn inevitable you're going to accumulate at least some level of detectable injury that doesn't completely heal over the course of 40 years. I needed shoulder reconstruction because I fell off a skateboard trying to bomb a hill a year and a half ago and it's healed to the point there isn't any functional impairment, but given there's metal in there now, it's obviously going to look abnormal on an image. There's just an impedance mismatch here between what imaging finds and what people actually care about. Any detectable deviation from expected tissue configuration is going to show up and get reported, but there is no reason for a patient to give a shit. Functional impairment and/or pain is what they care about, though those are both also universal if you live long enough. No 90 year-old walks without a limp but it's still completely fair to call a limp an "abnormal" gait.

99% of adults have abnormal faces, they all look different!

Ok, in that case it'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'd be normal, but one on the forehead would be abnormal unless everyone suddenly also had forehead noses

Relevant history from the US Airforce in the 1940s when they tried to build a cockpit for the average pilot and failed

I find this an interesting take on the story

https://polkas.github.io/posts/cursedim/

This is also a good argument why "opinionated" designs like from Apple are a bad idea. The average user does not exist. Stop trying to turn us into one!

I have used an iPhone for 8 years and a macbook for 2 years. Every year the experience gets worse, like on schedule. This theory might explain what is happening!

I would hate to be one of the ~80 million people in the world who have identical faces

Except that one guy.

Everyone is abnormal compared to yourself.

Dude I know exactly who you're talking about, that guy without a unique face! Weird as hell that he's the only one...

Right, it's clearly aging related deterioration. It's like saying facial wrinkles are an abnormality.

I think the conclusion they're eluding to in the article is that: "if MRI says 99% of people have abnormalities, MRI is not trustworthy".

Yes in one sense, but it also points to the insufficency of "normalness". See also: The Average Soldier.

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.

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.

More of the history of "avenge pilots" here: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-average/

only if the abnormality is in the same spot

Abnominal (not abdominal)

if they all have the same abnormality yeah but if they all have different abnormalities then they're still abnormalities.

Not if they are all different and produce negative effects

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's not true.

> alcohol is a blood thinner

Source?

Alcohol reduces clotting factors in the blood. This is known.

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.

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.

"1% of adults over 40 have abnormally normal shoulders"

Best thing a doctor ever told me was "you CAN get imaging done, but I'd like to warn you that there is a near-certainty we'd find something wrong with your shoulder and your back".

Given that most commenters do not seem to have read the article perhaps the headline could be more explicit about 'MRIs find "abnormalities" but they seem to have no relationship to actual health problems"

Who's the freak without an abnormality?

A statistical error. All humans are slightly asymmetrical. Most shoulder problems begin at foot and/or hip though.

My labrum was torn from multiple shoulder dislocations. I don't think that began at my foot or hip.

Im guessing certain gym rats who also dont desk/computer work?

I would strongly bet against gym rats not having some shoulder abnormality. If anything, I'd expect them to have more issues with their tendons and ligaments.

I'd bet they probably have some abnormality too, but I don't think I'd expect them to have more issues. There's a lot talked about people getting injured in the gym, but people get injured a lot outside the gym, just for some reason people really fixate on in the gym injuries.

There's lots of research that indicates that frequent strength training significantly reduces your risk of injury in day to day activities, especially later in life. If I can deadlift 500 pounds, I'm not going to get injured lifting 100 pounds, but your general population could. If I've got 3 inches of muscle around my hips and increased bone density from resistance training, I'm not going to break my hip when I trip.

"Strong people are harder to kill" -Mark Rippetoe

yeah. and joints, especially. I lost some wrist mobility during my boxing years and it never came back, even though I was in my early 20's when I had quit.

Why didn’t you wrap up

wraps won't save your joint from the damage caused by repeated high-force impact, and the cartilage only has to heal wrong once for a lifetime of mild discomfort.

More likely someone who's been in a coma for the last ten years.

Steph Curry

He’s getting old, but not over 40 yet.

Oh hey it's me, I'm the conformist. Stop picking on me.

Closely related to a huge problem in American health care --- overprescription, particularly of surgical procedure. There's evidence that some widespread classes of surgical intervention --- shoulder "impingement" in particular --- have outcomes no better than placebos in controlled trials where people literally get placebo incisions.

I have a giant metal plate in mine which I guess is kindof abnormal.

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's kinda warm and I like to sleep cool.

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.

Any recommendations? I have GERD and generally sleep on my back, which helps but isn't perfect.

You can try raising the head part of the bed by 5 - 6 or so inches using wood blocks. The doctor recommended it to me.

It's not perfect, but has really helped me!

> was costly but kinda worth it

This doesn't inspire confidence, but I guess any improvement that mitigates pain is nice.

But seriously, the article addressesd that

> 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.”

Cervical radiculopathy can cause shoulder pain. I have experienced this quite a bit and it's probably also because of my sleeping style. I wouldn't get an MRI unless I was planning to have surgery.

Do they define if this relates to anything noticeable in your day to day?

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's palm.

But I can only barely touch my fingers with both hands if I switch it up so my left hand is up top.

I have no pain or day to day mobility issues but something is lopsided. Is that what they consider abnormal?

Limited range of motion on one side could cause some deviations in scapulohumeral rhythm, so your force application won't be optimal and may cause injuries, or even cause uneveness and side effects in gait cycle. And with time it tends to get worse since the body would be trying to adopt to execute the function. But suboptimal force application eventually would cause joint injuries if a convex (humerus) is rolling without gliding or vice versa or doing it in suboptimal rhythm.

That's my personal take, not a doctor, study kinesiology as a hobby.

All such minor mobility issues could be addressed by body conditioning excercises including simple isolated mobility drills to learn range of motion of joints.

I'd consider it abnormal that you can do that; I can't get my fingertips within a foot of each other doing that.

I'm nearly 60 but I don't know if I could ever do that. You have good mobility IMO.

Interesting. What happens at 40 to make MRIs no longer accurate?

Why do you think it's inaccurate?

I have three kids and they've messed up my dominant schoulder (left).

I have three dogs and they’ve messed up my dominant shoulder, back and leg

From walking around holding them with your left arm when they were babies, or from something else?

Walking/carrying at all crazy hours once they were >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).

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/rock-climbing, pushing (empty) stroller with one hand, and carrying kid with other....

I don'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't surprise me.

What about the other 1%? I feel for them.

related discussion here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47008607

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'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.

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.

Evolution never really bothered with the wellbeing of 40+ year olds.

Oddly enough, I think now it will. Because there is a whole generation of people having kids later, some first time parents even in their 40s. Naturally this should mean they produce offspring that over time is also able to easily reproduce in their 40s. Teen pregnancy is way down, and late pregnancies are replacing it.

Even though they never have any neck pain, many shoulder issues are actually caused by pinched nerves in the cervical spine.

How many generations of constant bent over posture staring at a device before that's just built into the species?

Im not sure people with bad posture get more offspring than others. :)

The pickins are getting slim though. I don't know anyone in their 20s that doesn't sit hunched over staring at a screen for a large portion of their day while stipulating I don't know any where near all 20 somethings. Just one person's observations

If I learned anything at Buy N Large University, AR screens in eyeware may be huge.