Here’s something pretty unbelievable, or is it? Researchers have found that a small horn is growing more and more common in younger generations, sprouting from the base of their necks and is, at times, so pronounced that it can be seen and felt through the skin.
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This report, published by the BBC, was conducted by Dr. David Shahur of the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. He’d been practicing medicine for over 20 years when he first noticed the growth and started to document it. “Only in the last decade, increasingly I have been discovering that my patients have this growth on the skull,” he said.
These spikes, which are officially called “external occipital protuberance,” are said to be formed due to the bent-neck position that most cellphone users take when using their devices over long periods of time, putting an extra pressure at the point where the neck muscles meet the skull. The new growth is the body’s way of trying to redistribute the weight of the person’s head.
According to a study conducted on 2016 where over 200 radiographs were analyzed, around 41 percent of people have growths. The patients inspected were between the ages of 18 – 30, and the majority of them were males, with one man having a spike that measured 1.4 inches.
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Last year, Dr. Shahur broadened his study to include members of older generations and found that the issue was more prevalent in younger people, proving the theory that smartphones have a direct effect on how our bodies are shaped.
While the spikes don’t need any treatment, if we don’t change and improve our postures, they might be here to stay. “If no one is bothering them, they will just keep growing,” says the doctor.
