Back pain is a major problem in America, with about 1/3 of the population unable to find treatments that will help. Chronic back pain can be crippling and severely reduce the amount of exercise and overall enjoyment one can experience.
There are other cultures that don’t have this problem. There are some, in fact, that rarely have any cases of back pain at all.
One indigenous tribe in central India reported essentially none. And the discs in their backs showed little signs of degeneration as people aged.
An acupuncturist in Palo Alto, Calif., thinks she has figured out why. She has traveled around the world studying cultures with low rates of back pain — how they stand, sit and walk. Now she’s sharing their secrets with back pain sufferers across the U.S.
About two decades ago, Esther Gokhale started to struggle with her own back after she had her first child.
