Why do people get shorter when they’re older?
In: Biology
Their spine’s natural curve wears down so they are slightly crouched. And their natural posture with straight legs also gets slightly bent due to the soft bones at knees wearing out.
Well there’s a few reasons, the main one is that when people get older, stuff kind of just wears out, like a machine. There’s a bit of material between all of our bones called cartilage that works like a cushion, when people get older the cushion wears down a bit and could make someone a tiny bit shorter. When you think about how many bones there are in your back though, it can make people noticeably shorter.
Dont think of spines as long tubes, think of them like a disc shaped rocks with doughnuts in-between them. Over time, the doughnuts get more and more squished, and the overall height of the stack gets smaller. You have doughnuts(cartilage) between your rocks (bones) as well, and although it takes a really long time eventually they get all squished too.
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