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痛苦的部分原因。在其他情况下，关节的形状可能会使跌倒更有可能导致髋部骨折，例如，当骨骼因骨质疏松而变弱时。我们最近还展示了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定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。有多少是继承的？这在多大程度上取决于我们的饮食；取决于我们的生活方式--运动或久坐，或者随着年龄的增长我们可能会患上其他疾病？有一个很棒的资源可以帮助我们开始解决这些问题：全国健康与发展调查。这是一群从1946年出生起就被间隔研究的个体。他们最近拍了臀部和脊椎的X光照片，我们想测量臀部的形状和脊柱的曲线度。我们使用一个我们编写的计算机程序来执行一个称为‘形状建模’的过程来完成这个过程。该软件被训练来识别感兴趣的形状(臀部或脊柱)，并从大量图像中使用数学技术来寻找描述该形状的特征。这给出了形状的数字描述，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，通过观察臀部形状具有特定特征的人是否有其他共同之处(例如：男性或女性，低出生体重，肥胖)，我们可以开始了解这些因素是否影响了关节获得其形状的方式。这反过来可能帮助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，我们不知道是什么导致了这些疾病。这项研究的结果可能会给我们提供一些线索，从那里我们可以开始研究是否有可能避免一些“风险因素”。使用现有药物或新药可能是可能的，但更重要的是，可能同样是饮食或锻炼的问题。

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.