BONE STRUCTURE AND STRENGTH IN DIFFERENT RACIAL GROUPS

骨质疏松症是与年龄有关的最常见和最严重的疾病之一 疾病。它主要影响绝经期后的女性， 每年造成20多万例髋部骨折。大致 其中24,000名患者在骨折事件发生后3个月内死亡。 另有300多万人因 手腕和脊椎骨折。尽管进行了密集的研究，但原因是 骨质疏松症的问题仍未解决，而且我们还没有令人满意的治疗方法。 骨质疏松症的易感性存在明显的种族差异。 白人对这种疾病高度易感，而黑人几乎 完全免疫。造成这些种族差异的原因尚不清楚。 了解并必须掌握发病机制的重要线索(S) 是疾病的潜在原因。流行的解释是黑人有 比白人的骨骼质量更大，但这一点的科学基础 信念是软弱的。虽然有一些数据支持这一结论， 有相同数量的数据表明，相反的是 凯斯。然而，更重要的是，骨量不是唯一的，也可能不是 甚至是骨骼强度的主要决定因素。令人惊讶的是，没有 是一项研究，在这项研究中，骨骼结构在不同的 种族团体。也没有任何人试图研究这种影响 在骨骼的机械性能上的竞赛。这样做的主要目标是 研究项目是为了清楚地了解为什么这个种族 通过对髂骨和髂骨的相关研究，发现两者存在差异。 黑色腰椎骨结构和强度随年龄和性别的变化 对抗白人。将对骨骼结构进行定量评估 使用成熟、强大的骨组织形态计量学技术。 小梁骨的力学性能将用一种 材料测试系统，并将与 组织形态计量学确定的结构参数。 通过结合这些技术，拟议的研究将产生重要的 关于为什么白人 比黑人更容易患骨质疏松症，此外，还会提供 关于标准髂骨活检部位的代表性的有价值的信息 在静态组织形态计量学测量方面都属于中轴骨 和机械强度。

Osteoporosis is one of the most common and serious of the age-related diseases. Primarily affecting women in their post menopausal years, it is responsible for more than 200,000 hip fractures annually. Approximately 24,000 of these patients die within 3 months of the fracture incident. Over 3 million others suffer considerable pain and debility as a result of wrist and spine fractures. Despite an intensive research effort, the cause of osteoporosis still eludes us and we do not yet have satisfactory cures. There are marked racial differences in the susceptibility to osteoporosis. Whites are highly susceptible to the disease, whereas blacks are almost totally immune. The reasons for these racial differences are not clearly understood and must hold important clues to the pathogenetic mechanism(s) underlying the disease. The popular explanation is that black people have a greater skeletal mass than whites, but the scientific basis for this belief is weak. While there are some data to support this conclusion, there is an equal amount of data which suggests that the opposite is the case. However, more importantly, bone mass is not the only, and may not even be the main determinant of bone strength. Surprisingly, there has not been one study in which bone structure has been compared amongst different racial groups. Neither have there been any attempts to study the effect of race on the mechanical properties of bone. The primary goal of this research project is to gain a clear understanding of why this racial difference exists by performing a correlative study of iliac crest and vertebral bone structure and strength as functions of age and sex in black versus white people. The bone structure will be assessed quantitatively using the well-established, powerful technique of bone histomorphometry. The mechanical properties of trabecular bone will be characterized using a materials testing system and will be related to the histomorphometrically-determined structural parameters. By combining these techniques, the proposed study will generate significant new information on the important and intriguing question of why whites are more susceptible to osteoporosis than blacks and, in addition, will provide valuable information on how representative the standard iliac biopsy site is of the axial skeleton both in terms of static histomorphometric measures and mechanical strength.