Might be a weird question, but I have a background from health care so… Why are there so many elderly people here with bandy legs /Genu varum or have serious kyphosis? I have also seen many with malformed fingers and even younger people struggling with walking and having limps. Is arthrosis / rheumatic treatment less prioritized here or just more serious in Japanese people? Most things I have only seen in text books, but here I see them in real life for the first time.
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I believe that it’s the legacy of a long history of very closed 島国, i.e. consanguinity.
Quick research shows [japanese university papers](https://pure.fujita-hu.ac.jp/en/publications/genetic-disease-patterns-in-japan-a-review) that seems to prove this point but I seriously don’t have the knowledge required.
> japan consanguinity legs
keywords and you find many papers, though it may be biaised to use the “consanguinity” keyword.
I always wondered this too! I thought maybe it was something to do with post-war nutrition as there was food scarcity, but the bow legs would be from vit D deficiency in childhood.