We all know that a normal adult human body has a total of 206 bones, including: 29 skull bones, 51 trunk bones and 126 limb bones. In which, the limb bones are divided into 64 upper limb bones and 62 lower limb bones. However, after research, it has been shown that most Europeans have 206 bones, while most Asians, especially many Chinese and Japanese people have only 204 bones.
So the question is why is there this difference, where did the other 2 bones go?
According to medical research, the basic difference lies in the 5th toe. This toe of the Chinese and Japanese has only 2 bones, while Europeans and Americans have all 3.
A survey conducted by Chinese scientists in 1985 showed that Asians, specifically Chinese, have fewer bones than Europeans and Americans. Most people in this country only have 204 bones. This also coincides with the conclusion from the Japanese investigation.
Illustration. (Source: Internet)
In 1995, researchers observed the feet of 615 Chinese people and found that 451 of them had only two vertebrae in the fifth toe, accounting for 73.3% of the total, and 81 feet only. There are two vertebrae in the fourth toe, accounting for 13.2%. Of the other 294 pairs of feet observed later, 10 pairs of feet had two vertebrae in the third toe, accounting for 3.4%.
In the end, they came to a conclusion: Most Chinese have only two bones in the fifth toe, and it is rare for other fingers to have only two.
Then, two British scientists, Pfitzner and Hasebe, widened the field of view, they observed the feet of 838 people from all over Europe and 260 Japanese people respectively, combined with the results. analyzed the feet of scientist Venning on 4,632 Britons and came to the following conclusions:
Among 828 Europeans, only 4 have two vertebrae in the third toe, accounting for 0.48%; 13 people have two vertebrae in the fourth toe, accounting for about 1.6% and 310 people have 2 vertebrae in the 5th toe, accounting for about 37%.
Among 4632 Britons, according to the above ratio is 21/100/1970, accounting for 0.45%, 2.16% and 42.53% respectively.
Similar to 260 Japanese, the ratio is 0/20/191, accounting for 0/7.7% and 73.5% respectively.
Illustration. (Source: Internet)
In fact, this difference is related to changes in bone numbers during human development. Scientific research shows that the number of human bones is not “static”, not fixed. Accordingly, the number of bones of infants is 305, children are 217 and adults are 206.
It can be said that cases that are more or less than those numbers are very rare. With continued growth, some bones begin to fuse. During this stage of development, the number of bones in the human body gradually decreases and will become “stable” after adulthood.
It is theorized that the difference in bone numbers between Asians and Europeans is from the waist to the pelvis. According to this hypothesis, young Asians have hip, pelvis, and pubic bones. However, as the body matures, the cartilage between these three bones is gone, so they fuse together to form the hip bone. This is the difference in the evolution of Asians.
Illustration. (Source: Internet)
Does having “bone loss” have any effect on the body?
More bones mean a high probability of bone injury, and the loss of two bones not only does not affect walking and activity, but also reduces the probability of injury, which benefits people in primitive societies. Water.
Moreover, human evolution is to better survive on its own so it has no effect on human body or health.
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