February 18, 2026
Shoulder shrug: abnormal is normal?
99% of adults over 40 have shoulder "abnormalities" on an MRI, study finds
If everyone’s “abnormal,” maybe that’s normal—Internet roasts scary shoulder scans
TLDR: A study found 99% of people over 40 show shoulder changes on MRI, even without pain. Commenters roasted the word “abnormal,” debated MRI overuse, and argued neck nerves vs. shoulder wear—landing on a simple takeaway: aging is normal, so tone down the scary language.
A new study in JAMA Internal Medicine says 99% of people over 40 show “abnormal” rotator cuff findings on MRI—yet most have zero shoulder pain. The Internet heard “abnormal” and collectively screamed, then laughed. The mood: if almost everyone has it, stop calling it abnormal. One commenter snapped, “Who’s the freak without an abnormality?” while another flexed with “You call it abnormality, I call it evolution.” Translation: midlife shoulders are the default setting, not a factory defect.
Cue the semantic cage match. Posters want doctors to retire scary words like “tear” for gentler ones like “fraying” or “wear,” mirroring the study’s push to soften language. Others dunked on MRIs as anxiety machines that overdiagnose and upsell repairs, while a cautious crowd reminded everyone scans still help flag rare serious issues. The plot twist? A neck-versus-shoulder feud: one hot take declared many shoulder woes are actually pinched nerves in the neck, igniting a split between Team Cervical Spine and Team Rotator Cuff.
Humor ran wild: “Congrats, your midlife DLC comes with a free shoulder tear.” Over on HN, the thread turned into a language-policing jamboree and an MRI skepticism bake-off. The vibe: age happens, shoulders fray, panic less—explain better.
Key Points
- •A Finnish study of 602 adults (ages 41–76) found 99% had at least one rotator cuff abnormality on MRI.
- •Most participants (82%) reported no shoulder symptoms, despite frequent MRI abnormalities.
- •Partial-thickness tears (62%) were most common, followed by tendinopathy (25%) and full-thickness tears (11%).
- •Abnormalities were similar by sex and increased with age; no full-thickness tears were seen under age 45.
- •After adjusting for confounders, full-thickness tears were not more common in symptomatic versus asymptomatic shoulders, suggesting many MRI findings are incidental.