Temporal Trends in Vertebral Dimensions – a case study from Finland

Vertebral fractures and other back problems represent a major, increasing worldwide health problem. This has increased the need to better understand the reasons behind this phenomenon. In addition to a reduction in bone mineral density and overall size of the vertebral body, research has indicated a possible association between the shape of the endplate and spinal disorders. As one previous study has shown changes in vertebral body dimensions between contemporary people and their medieval counterparts, we wanted to examine the potential temporal trends in vertebral size and dimensions in Finnish samples of archaeological and contemporary individuals. To conduct this study, we utilized three archaeological populations from the 16th–19th century and clinical materials from two population-based Finnish birth cohorts. As the average height of people has increased greatly since the first time period, we also height-adjusted the dimensions to provide a clearer picture of the dimensional changes that have occurred in the later temporal group. Our results were in agreement with those of the earlier study. The archaeological samples had a larger vertebral size than the contemporary population when height was adjusted for. Vertebral mediolateral width in particular had decreased, and the shape of the vertebral body had changed.