MRC National Survey of Health and Development: hip and spine morphologies from DXA images related to osteoporosis, osteoarthritis and low back pain

我们的臀部和背部下部的形状在很大程度上决定了我们的灵活性和我们移动的容易程度。像骨关节炎这样的疾病不仅会破坏我们关节中的组织，还会改变关节的形状，这至少是患者变得僵硬和运动变得疼痛的部分原因。在其他情况下，关节的形状可能使跌倒更有可能导致髋关节骨折，例如，当骨质疏松症使骨骼变弱时。我们最近还表明，我们每个人的下背部都有自己独特的形状，我们目前正在探索这种特殊的形状是否会使背部疼痛或受伤的可能性更大。然而，我们不知道的是，是什么决定了我们关节的形状。继承了多少？多少取决于我们吃什么;或者我们的生活方式--活跃或久坐不动，或者我们随着年龄的增长可能患上的其他疾病？一个很好的资源可以帮助我们开始解决这些问题：国家健康和发展调查。这是一组从1946年出生开始就被研究的个体。他们最近接受了髋关节和脊柱的X光片检查，我们想测量髋关节的形状和脊柱的弯曲度。我们使用我们编写的计算机程序来执行称为“形状建模”的过程。该软件经过训练以识别感兴趣的形状（髋关节或脊柱），并从大量图像中使用数学技术来寻找描述形状的特征。这给出了形状的数值描述，然后我们可以与其他测量结果进行比较。在全国健康和疾病调查中，多年来收集了大量的社会、行为和生物医学数据，尽管这是第一次拍摄关节的X光照片。例如，通过观察具有特定臀部形状特征的个体是否有其他共同点（例如：男性或女性，出生体重低，肥胖），我们可以开始了解这些因素是否影响了关节获得形状的方式。反过来，这可能有助于我们理解为什么有些人更容易患上骨关节炎、骨质疏松症或腰痛。目前，我们还不知道是什么引发了这些疾病。这项研究的结果可能会给我们一些线索，从那里我们可以开始工作，如果有可能避免一些“风险因素”。这可能是可能的使用现有的或新的药物，但更重要的是，可能同样是一个问题的饮食或运动。

The shapes of our hips and the lower part of our back largely determine our flexibility and how easily we can move. Diseases such as osteoarthritis not only destroy the tissues in our joints but also change the shape of the joint, which is at least part of the reason sufferers become stiff and movement becomes painful. In other situations, the shape of the joint may make it more likely that falling leads to a fracture of the hip, for instance, when bones are weakened by osteoporosis. We have also recently shown that we each have our own distinctive shape to our lower backs and we are currently exploring whether the particular shape might make back pain or injury more likely. What we don't know, however, is what determines the shapes of our joints. How much is inherited? How much depends on what we eat; or our lifestyle - active or sedentary, or other diseases from which we may suffer as we get older?A wonderful resource is available to help us start to tackle these questions: the National Survey of Health and Development. This is a group of individuals who have been studied at intervals from when they were born in 1946. They have recently had x-ray images taken of their hips and their spine and we want to make measurements of the shape of the hip and the curviness of the spine. We do this using a computer program we have written to perform a process called 'Shape Modelling'. This software is trained to identify the shape of interest (hip or spine) and from lots of images uses a mathematical technique to look for features that describe the shape. This gives a numerical description of the shape that we can then compare with other measurements. In the National Survey of Health and Disease a wealth of social, behavioural and biomedical data have been collected over the years, although this is the first time that x-ray pictures of the joints have been taken. By looking to see if individuals with particular features to the shape of their hips, for instance, have other things in common (for example: male or female, low birth weight, obesity) we can begin to see whether these things might have affected the way the joints have acquired the shape they have. This, in turn, might help us to understand why some people are more prone to osteoarthritis, osteoporosis or low back pain.At present, we do not understand what starts off these disorders. The results from this study might give us some clues to this and from there we can begin to work out if it is possible to avoid some of the 'risk factors'. This might be possible using existing or new drugs but, more importantly, might equally be a matter of diet or exercise.