More than a quarter of men will develop a groin hernia
Roughly 27% of men, and about 3% of women, get a groin hernia at some point. The idea is ancient: an Egyptian medical text, the Ebers Papyrus, described one by around 1550 BC. Yet some basics remain uncertain, including whether heavy lifting actually causes them.
A hernia, from the Latin for rupture, is tissue or an organ pushing out through the wall of the cavity that normally holds it. The belly and pelvis work like a container of muscle, tendon and bone; when pressure inside climbs too high or the wall weakens, a gap opens and fat or bowel slips through. Once started, a hernia tends to grow, since tension on the edges of the hole increases. The bulge may come and go, but the defect stays.
Most are in the abdomen, and inguinal hernias in the groin make up as much as 75% of abdominal cases, more often on the right side. They cluster before age one and after 50. Femoral hernias, lower down, are far more common in women and more prone to strangulation, when the blood supply to trapped bowel is cut off, which is the main danger. Incisional hernias form in surgical wounds that never fully healed, appearing in about 13% of patients two years after certain abdominal operations. A hiatus hernia is different again: part of the stomach slides up through the diaphragm, often causing heartburn.
Risk rises with smoking, lung disease, obesity and pregnancy, and hernias run in families, apparently through dominant inheritance. The evidence linking groin hernias to heavy lifting is unclear, and there is no proof that exercise makes an existing one worse.
Treatment varies by sex. Men without symptoms are often offered watchful waiting, though most eventually opt for surgery as pain develops; women are generally advised repair because femoral hernias carry more complications. Around 32.53 million people worldwide were living with one of these abdominal-wall or groin hernias in 2019, a 36% rise on 1990, and treating abdominal wall hernias costs roughly 2.5 to 3 billion dollars a year.
Source: Hernia
