What exactly is a hernia?, I mean we hear it a lot but what is it exactly?.> So hernia is a hole in the abdominal wal,l if you look at the anatomically the abdominal wall it’s divided into four layers with the skin obviously being the most superficial layer, and then there’s a layer of fat, a layer of muscle, and the fourth and the deepest layer is called fashion, and the fashion is really the strength of the abdominal wall it keeps all your intestines inside, and a hernia is simply a hole in the fashion, and it’s common in a couple different areas the belly button which is referred to as an umbilical hernia, in the groins which is referred to as an inguinal hernia, and there’s different other hernias we’ll talk about as I guess we go through the show.> Absolutely yeah really interesting because um I’ve heard you know you hear a lot about hernias in different age groups with hernias, but I was never quite sure what causes them, or why some people are more susceptible to them than others, can you tell us a little bit about that part of it what what causes it?.> Well there’s a lot of research going into what exactly causes hernias, why people certain people get them, some people don’t, and why do they come back after surgery certain points, a lot of it is believed just the genetic makeup your abdominal wall, but there are certain risk factors that will lend itself to forming a hernia, and that is anything that increases your intra-abdominal pressure, something that’s referred to as a valsalva maneuver, and you’ll see that in construction workers anybody who lifts a lot at work, anybody who has COPD, and is chronically coughing, constipation, chronic constipation, can also increase intra-abdominal pressure and lend itself to these holes in the abdominal wall referred to as hernias.