Boys are born with stronger spines: Study

New York, July 25: Compared to boys, girls are born with weaker vertebrae, the series of small bones that make up the spinal column, new research has found. The researchers found that vertebral cross-sectional dimensions, a key structural determinant of the vertebra's strength, were 10.6 percent smaller on average in newborn females than in males. "Human beings are the only mammals in which this difference is seen, and it is one of the few key physiological differences between the sexes," said senior study author Vicente Gilsanz from The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles, US. Results of the study published online in the Journal of Pediatrics suggest that this difference is evolutionary, allowing the female spine to adapt to the fetal load during pregnancy. But this difference in vertebrae makes women more vulnerable to scoliosis - an abnormal curving of the spine and the bone disease osteoporosis, the study said.