Word: spines
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What makes the golf swing so hard on the back? University of Southern California orthopedic surgeon Robert G. Watkins says it's the repetitive extremes in rotation and compression that go with the sport. "Spine injuries lead the list of injuries on both the senior and regular PGA tours," says Watkins, spine consultant to the Professional Golfers' Association Tour and editor of The Spine in Sports (Mosby, 1996). "It's true for amateurs...
...human spine simply wasn't designed to swing a golf club. A 1996 study showed both professional and amateur golfers generating "peak spinal compression loads" of 6,000 newtons (a measure of gravitational force). That's the equivalent of eight times an individual's standing body weight. These back-crunching levels are "close to the known failure loads associated with lumbar intervertebral joints," concludes Thomas P. Headman, a biomechanical engineer at the University of Southern California...
...same study clocked amateurs generating 85 Nm (newton meters) of torque, compared to 57 Nm generated by professionals with more energy-efficient swings. Normal joints in the spine fail, Watkins notes, at 88 Nm of torque, while degenerated joints, typical of avid or professional golfers, fail...
Both drugs have been dubbed "designer estrogens" because they block estrogen's ability to promote tumor growth in the breast while at the same time mimicking the hormone's salutary effects on the spine. (About 75% of all breast cancers are estrogen-sensitive.) But they can also trigger serious side effects, including potentially fatal blood clots. So the good news about designer estrogens must always be tempered with some heavy-duty caveats...
Consuming products with folic acid helps prevent certain serious birth defects of the brain and spine known as neural-tube defects. The U.S. Public Health Service has recommended that all women of childbearing age consume 400 micrograms of folic acid daily beginning before pregnancy. Despite the encouraging findings in the Journal report, there is no direct evidence that blood-folate levels in women ages 15 to 40 have reached protective levels. DR. JENNIFER L. HOWSE, PRESIDENT March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation White Plains...