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，这种情况可能使现代人易患与骨骼相关的健康风险。体力活动水平的减少以及饮食的改变，特别是在采用农业之后，可能是过去一万年中人类骨量减少的原因。该合作项目将评估大型人类骨骼样本中骨骼结构的变化，包括不同地区人口和生存策略的多样性，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。调查过去和最近人群的人类骨骼，以及整合对健在运动员的研究，将有效地勾勒出现代人正常变异的程度。更好地了解骨骼变异性，反过来，将产生洞察因素，有助于当代骨骼健康和相关的昂贵的医疗条件，如骨质减少和骨质疏松症。该项目将为本科生和研究生（包括女性和少数族裔）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丰富机会。在此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存储库提供给其他研究人员、教育工作者和公众。这项研究验证了一个假设，即肢体结构中的骨小梁和骨皮质结构反映了不同人群的流动性和活动差异，这意味着越来越久坐的生活方式是导致现代人骨骼质量明显下降的主要因素。最近的研究表明，在过去，高度流动的群体，如狩猎采集者，与久坐不动的农人和更近的当代人群相比，骨骼明显更强健。人们认为，随着农业的普及和随后的技术进步，活动和体力活动的减少是导致近代人类骨骼质量减少的关键因素。本研究将描述大量人群中小梁骨和皮质骨的变异特征，并评估这种变异范围与身体活动、活动能力、体型、饮食和祖先的差异之间的关系。研究设计包括两个主要部分。显微计算机断层扫描数据将从近期人类的不同骨骼样本中收集，以评估多个颅后元素（肱骨、股骨、胫骨、颈椎）的骨小梁和皮质骨结构的变化。该骨骼样本将包括来自全球多个地点的采集者、园艺师、集约化农业工作者和后工业人口等实践各种生存和技术策略的群体的代表。此外，将从在世的优秀运动员和非运动员对照组中收集外周定量计算机断层扫描（pQCT）数据，以评估终身高强度体育活动对骨骼质量的影响。研究的两个组成部分之间的比较将有助于了解人类骨骼质量随时间变化的活动和行为相关变化。

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.