EDS: I include EDS in the estimated 15% of women I encounter in my medical practice and who have manifest hypermobility. My view is that Mother Nature gave women genes for ligaments rendered more lax, via the hormone Relaxin, to ease the bio-mechanical assaults of childbirth.
The genes for female Hypermobility are sex linked because men are not well served, in their pursuits of war & hunting, by delicate joints of knees, spine, & pelvis.
My encounters with the common expression of Hypermobility amongst Hmong, Mexican, & Hawaiian cultures, recently evolved from a long history of agrarian-subsistence existence, led me to a theory about why hypermobility genes are so highly conserved.
In such cultures it might be the that case that family wellbeing is better fostered by a greater number of hands to generate food, even in face of additional mouths to feed.
My insight has been: men in these cultures choose wives whose mothers have a proven track record of ability to generate copious offspring. My regard is that hypermobile women generally have an easier effort birthing; especially subsequent children with abbreviated birthing times
My theories includes that abbreviated and easier births provide the offspring with less oxygen deprivation & resultant higher intelligence, which participates in enhanced survival skills. I have absolutely no data for these theories.
Indeed, it is important to identify those adolescent women with the obvious morphologies of Hypermobility so they can be guided as to types of work and sports that are non-injurious.
Hypermobile women are predisposed to permanent injury of pelvic girdle sacroiliac joints (each 17 cm square in area), largest joints in axial spine. Mundane lifting and pratfall episodes can permanently injure ligaments of these joints; with chronic low back pain consequences.
On numerous occasions, I have encountered women who developed chronic low back pain by high school & who had pursued soccer & basketball as school children. My regard is that repeated falls onto the buttocks during formative years of pelvic girdle ligament development is harmful.
Female youths should pursue swimming, golf, fencing, and other such non-contact sports that preserve ligament integrity and take advantage of the greater angles of range of motion that they possess. They can be champion swimmers & especially limber at the backstroke.
Amongst males, extreme sports of skateboarding, rugby, motocross, football etc. are popular and exceedingly threatening to major joints; especially the sacroiliac joints. Hypermobile males need to avoid these sports. Even non-hypermobiles oft permanently injured in these sports.
Most interestingly, I have certain novel opinions about the type of sports that the other gender should be wary of pursuing, but I have learned, on several occasions, that those opinions are not welcome in social media.
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