Estimation of skeleton weight in the living

Abstract

The weight of the skeleton is due, only in part, to the size or the volume enclosed by the surface of its individual bones. The size of the bones is determined by the many factors included in both heredity and environment. I t is generally believed that after growth is completed there is no si,&ficant change in the size of the normal skeleton, or of any bone comprising it, throughout the life span. However, bones are living organs and their maintenance is dependent on metabolic processes which lmay be affected by many factors, including stress, activity, growth and aging. Evidence of these effects is apparent in the internal structure of a bone through alteration in the amount and density of its deep, spongy substance (substawtia sportgiosa) and its superficial, compact substance (substawtia compacta).Koch ('17) considered the conformation of the intrinsic structures of the femur to be the result of adaptation to stress of pressure and function. A more realistic view has been presented by Murray ( '36) who recognized that the primary patterns of the skeleton are well defined early in life and that environmental conditions act as modifiers of the hereditary intrinsic patterns. The importance of functional stresses in maintaining the characteristic structures of bones is indicated by the work of Amprino ('38) who showed that, when normal movement of the limbs is inhibited, degenerative processes akin to osteoporosis set in. Sperling et al. ( ' 5 5 ) studied 'This investigation has been aided in part

Age and Sex Related Changes in the Amount of Cortex of Normal Human Ribs

“…After skeletal maturity, the parabolic index of the male ribs shows a steady decrease, but that of the females tends to stay near the maximum level up until age 60, when it begins to decrease rapidly. A similar lack of evidence for a change in amount of bone especially at menopause has been found by others (for example, LindahZ & Lindgren 1962, Merz et al 1956, Trotter et al 1960. These facts suggcst that ( i ) in healthy women there is no increase in the ratc of loss of bone at or immediately following cessation of cyclic ovarian function and (ii) if the menopausc is causally related to postmenopausal ostcoporosis, it may be through an extraovarian mechanism.…”

Body Composition in Elderly People

“…This decrease in LBM could result from the diminution of skeleton, or gans and mainly muscle cell mass with aging [7,13,18]. At the same time it is interesting to note that ECV in its totality did not change with aging [20], while PV increased.…”

“…Effec tively, ISV was found to decrease with age. Connective tissue water is certainly also de creasing and its value can be estimated from the decrease in bone and cartilage mass with aging [13].…”

Dietary protein intakes and bone growth

“…It is well known that in adults the size of a majority of bones is on average greater in males than in females [18]. Furthermore, morphometric studies indicate that there is a significant gender difference in the cortical thickness of axial and appendicular bones [19][20][21]. The important gender difference in bone mass that develops during pubertal maturation appears to result from a greater increase in bone size, a characteristic which is associated with a larger increment in the cortical shell in males as compared to females [13,14].…”