Bone’s Structural Diversity in Adult Females Is Established before Puberty
Bone must be rigid for leverage yet light for mobility. We studied how bone modeling and remodeling fashioned differences in bone size, shape, and mass during growth to achieve these properties in adulthood.We measured the structural features of a tibial cross-section using quantitative computed tomography and markers of remodeling in 258 10- to 13-yr-old girls during 2 yr and in 108 of their mothers.Tibia total cross-sectional area and mass correlated between daughters and their mothers (r = 0.34 and 0.44, respectively, both P0.01). The location of a daughter's tibial total cross-sectional area, medullar area, and bone mass in the lower, middle, or upper part of the sample distribution was…
Familial resemblance and diversity in bone mass and strength in the population are established during the first year of postnatal life
Familial resemblance and diversity in bone structure and strength in adulthood are determined in part during growth. Whether these characteristics are established during gestation or shortly after birth is not known. Total-body, lumbar spine, and femoral neck size and mass and indices of tibial bending strength and distal radial compressive strength were measured using bone densitometry and quantitative computed tomography in 236 girls at 18.5 years of age. Among them, 219, 141, and 105 girls had crown-heel length (CHL) and weight recorded at birth and at 6 and 12 months of age, and then height and weight were recorded at 3, 5, 10, 13, and 15 years of age in 181, 176, 127, 111, and 228 girl…