Backpack Straps Cut Blood Flow to Shoulders, Arms and Increase Fatigue

Wearing a backpack of just 26 pounds can significantly decrease blood flow through your shoulder, down to your fingertips.

Wearing a backpack of just 26 pounds can significantly decrease blood flow through your shoulder, down to your fingertips, and may result in a loss of fine motor control and increased fatigue, according to a new study.

In the study, which linked examined pack straps and adults, indicate that even light loads of 26 pounds can decrease upper extremity blood flow.

In some professions, such as the military, firefighting and mountain rescue, the packs may equal as much as 60 percent of adult body weight.

Backpack straps typically rest on an area of the body where they may compress the axillary vein which causes abnormally high blood pressure inside the veins and a subsequent decrease of blood flow in the shoulders and arms.

The researchers speculated that blood flow of the large and small vessels of the upper extremity area would decrease in an individual while wearing a backpack.

To test their theory, they examined eight healthy volunteers, six men and two women between the ages of 18-30.

The right brachial artery was measured using ultrasound and the index finger pulp microvascular flow was measured using the photoplethysmography method. Baseline flows were measured immediately before and ten minutes after donning a 26-pound backpack.

A ten-minute testing period was chosen because people typically wear a backpack for at least ten minutes. This amount of time is also sufficient to measure flood flow.

After wearing the pack for ten minutes, brachial artery blood flow and index finger microvascular flow decreased,

Citing the finding, the researchers concluded that backpack loads of just 26 pounds decrease upper extremity macrovascular and microvascular blood flows, and may result in a loss of fine motor control and increased fatigue.

According to Timothy Neuschwander, MD, the first author of the study and a physician, “We surmise that the mechanism of diminished blood flow is likely due to strap compression of the axillary vein. We think that backpack straps may benefit from a redesign that skirts the vein leading from the upper extremity to the heart.”

The study, ‘Backpack Straps Decrease Upper Extremity Blood Flow’, will be presented at the 121st Annual Meeting of the American Physiological Society, part of the Experimental Biology 2008 scientific conference.

Source-ANI
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