Why Do Humans Have Back Pain? Evolution Left Us With a Problem We Still Carry Today

Humans weren’t always walking upright, only using 2 legs. Fossil evidence suggests that our ancestors started as quadrupedal or four-legged species and over millions of years transitioned into bipedalism. This is an evolutionary event that changed our physiology, modifying humans’ pelvis, legs, and spine.

This transition is slow and required a significant change in our skeleton, which is still affecting us today. In other words, the fact that we now walk upright is one of the leading causes of why humans have back pain. Let’s discuss how evolution created this modern problem.

Upright Walking: A Double-Edged Sword

Our ancestors used to walk on four legs; however, due to a lot of different factors, such as humans migrating to a different environment, which required freeing their hands for essential tasks, we transitioned to become bipedal creatures.

It allows ancient humans to improve long-distance travel and to do persistent hunting, where we outrun our prey. This means better or increased access to food sources, and soon the ability to carry tools and weaponry.

Freeing our hands and being able to use them for various tasks was revolutionary for our ancestors, and they definitely needed them to survive.

However, adapting to bipedalism required an S‑shaped spine that balanced our upper body, but it placed more stress on our vertebrae, discs, and ligaments. So, unfortunately, the curvature that helped us walk upright was also the reason why we are prone to back pain and other spinal issues.

Read more: Science Daily

Ape-like Spines and Chronic Pain

The Human Back Is A Design Disaster - Cheddar Explores

Our evolutionary cousins, the apes, do not suffer from back pain conditions, and this underscores that human spinal design is a compromise between being able to walk upright and vulnerability to spinal stress.

Apes walk on four legs still, so they were able to distribute their weight and balance the stress more evenly across their whole spinal structure. This shows that the increased stress in one or specific points in our spine is a major contributor to why humans suffer back pain.

Evolutionary Trade‑Offs in Spinal Structure

The vertebrae, discs, and vertebral joints, despite our millions of years of evolution, are still not perfectly tuned to our way of walking. They carry a lot of the load, and this could lead to wear and tear that turns into various conditions like scoliosis or degenerative disc disease.

It is our body’s way of compensating to be able to adapt to the two-legged life. It shows that evolution is not perfect and that there are trade-offs. However, we would not be here if it weren’t for these changes. As mentioned above, the ability to walk upright and use our hands is likely what kept our ancestors surviving during their time, and passed on their genes.

Read more: Science.org

Back Pain in Modern Life

You can blame a lot of your back pain on the evolutionary process if you do suffer from it. However, it is crucial to realize that today’s sedentary lifestyles have worsened these problems. Some examples are sitting all day long on our computers or watching TV, poor posture when walking, and weak muscles that support the spine, which carry our load every single day.

Evolution has already put a lot of stress on our backs, and if we do not do anything to help it, then sooner or later, we could experience back pain. However, understanding the evolutionary trade-offs that helped our ancestors survive in the past should empower us, instead of becoming resentful, to use posture, movement, and the building of our back muscles to help our own bodies. The very same one, which took millions of years to reach this point.

Evolution Gone Wrong? Why Our Bodies Work (or Don't!) ~ with ALEX BEZZERIDES

Author's Final Thoughts

Humans traded a more stable spine for the ability to walk upright. We might see some problems today, such as back pain and other related diseases, but our S-shaped spine is a marvel of evolution.

If we had not adapted, we would most probably not have gotten to this moment. Realizing that should help us address back pains with smart lifestyle choices, and understanding their origins is part of what makes us humans.

Read more: Ancient DNA Shows Humans Interbred With Mysterious ‘Ghost Species’ We Still Don’t Understand

References & Further Reading

Lieberman, D. E. (2015). Lower back pain. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health. https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2015/1/2/1795271

Whitcome, K. K., Shapiro, L. J., & Lieberman, D. E. (2007). Fetal load and the evolution of lumbar lordosis in bipedal hominins. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06342

Plomp, K. A., Roberts, C. A., & Spoor, F. (2015). The ancestral shape hypothesis: an evolutionary explanation for the occurrence of intervertebral disc herniation in humans. BMC Evolutionary Biology. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4410577/

Haeusler, M., Gruss, L. T., & Fornai, C. (2021). The obstetrical dilemma hypothesis: there’s life in the old dog yet. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8518115/

Mitteroecker, P., Pavličev, M., & Grunstra, N. D. S. (2024). Evolution of the human birth canal. American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. https://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(22)00733-5/fulltext