SBE-RCUK: Collaborative Research: The effects of mobility and physical activity on human postcranial skeletal variation

与其他灵长类动物和早期人类相比，现代人的骨骼相对较轻，这种情况可能会使现代人容易受到与骨骼相关的健康风险的影响。体力活动水平的减少以及饮食的变化，特别是在采用农业之后，可能是过去10,000年来人类骨量减少的原因。这一合作项目将评估大量人类骨骼样本中骨骼结构的变化，包括各种地区人口和生存策略，以评估身体活动水平、饮食和其他因素对现代人类骨骼的影响。研究过去和最近人类的骨骼，以及整合对在世运动员的研究，将有效地勾勒出现代人正常变异的程度。更好地了解骨骼的可变性，反过来将有助于洞察导致当代骨骼健康和相关昂贵医疗条件的因素，如骨量减少和骨质疏松症。该项目将为包括妇女和少数民族在内的本科生和研究生提供教育和培训机会，为年轻专业人员提供博士后培训，并为宾夕法尼亚州农村和城市学区的K-12教育工作者提供教育充实机会。在该项目过程中收集的数据和开发的教育模块将通过在线数据库提供给其他研究人员、教育工作者和普通公众。这项研究验证了这样的假设，即肢体元素中的骨小梁和皮质骨结构反映了人类群体之间的活动和活动差异，这意味着越来越多的久坐生活方式是导致现代人骨量明显减少的主要因素。最近的研究表明，在过去，与久坐不动的农学家和较新的当代人口相比，流动性较高的群体，如狩猎-采集者，骨骼要健壮得多。据称，随着农业的采用和随后的技术进步，活动能力和体力活动的减少被认为是推动现代人类骨骼质量减少的关键因素。这项研究将描述大量人群中骨小梁和皮质骨的差异，并评估这种差异与体力活动、活动度、体型、饮食和祖先的差异之间的关系。研究设计由两个主要部分组成。微型计算机断层扫描数据将从现代人类的不同骨骼样本中收集，以评估骨小梁和皮质骨结构在多种颅后元素(肱骨、股骨、胫骨、颈椎)中的变化。这个骨骼样本将包括实践各种生存和技术战略的群体的代表，如采集者、园艺家、集约化农学家和来自全球多个地点的后工业人口。此外，外周定量计算机断层扫描(PQCT)扫描数据将从在世的精英运动员和非运动员对照中收集，以评估终身高强度体力活动对骨骼质量的影响。这项研究的两个组成部分之间的比较将有助于理解人类骨骼质量随着时间的推移与活动和行为相关的变化。

Modern humans have relatively lightly built skeletons compared to other primates and earlier human populations, a condition which may predispose modern humans to bone-related health risks. Reduced physical activity levels as well as dietary changes, especially following the adoption of agriculture, may be responsible for these reductions in human bone mass over the last 10,000 years. This collaborative project will assess variation in bone structure in a large human skeletal sample encompassing a diversity of regional populations and subsistence strategies to evaluate the effects of physical activity levels, diet, and other factors on the modern human skeleton. Investigating the human skeleton from past and recent populations, as well as integrating studies of living athletes, will effectively frame the extent of normal variation in modern humans. A better understanding of skeletal variability will, in turn, produce insight into the factors that contribute to contemporary bone health and related costly medical conditions, such as osteopenia and osteoporosis. This project will provide educational and training opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students, including women and minorities, postdoctoral training for young professionals, and educational enrichment opportunities for K-12 educators from rural and urban school districts in Pennsylvania. The data collected and the educational modules developed during the course of this project will be made available to other researchers, educators, and the general public through online data repositories. This study tests the hypothesis that trabecular and cortical bone structure in limb elements reflects mobility and activity differences among human populations, implicating an increasingly sedentary lifestyle as the major factor driving the apparent decrease in skeletal mass in recent humans. Recent work has suggested that in the past, highly mobile groups, like hunter-gatherers, had significantly more robust skeletons compared to sedentary agriculturalists and more recent contemporary populations. Reductions in mobility and physical activity, which have purportedly coincided with the adoption of agriculture and subsequent technological advances, have been argued to be critical factors driving the reduction in skeletal mass in recent humans. This study will characterize variation in both trabecular and cortical bone across a large number of human populations and evaluate this range of variation in relation to differences in physical activity, mobility, body size, diet, and ancestry. The study design consists of two major components. Microcomputed tomography scan data will be collected from a diverse skeletal sample of recent humans to assess variation in trabecular and cortical bone structure in multiple postcranial elements (humerus, femur, tibia, cervical vertebra). This skeletal sample will include representatives of groups practicing various subsistence and technological strategies such as foragers, horticulturalists, intensive agriculturalists, and post-industrial populations drawn from multiple locations globally. In addition, peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) scan data will be collected from living elite athletes and non-athlete controls to assess the effects of lifelong intensive physical activity on skeletal mass. Comparisons between the two components of the study will inform understanding of activity- and behavior-related changes in human skeletal mass through time.