Studies of osteoporosis in South Africa using isotope-related and other techniques

This report is limited by its being an interim account of the research and is of necessity incomplete. Amongst the present data, there are insufficient results obtained for African subjects and for the extreme age ranges. These lacunae are expected to remain temporary set backs. All the measurements were made on the patients' left sides. This was chosen to coincide with the non-dominant femoral region. One trend is clear for all groups of subjects, where there are sufficient statistics. There is the expected fall in BMD beyond the age of menopause. Although there are severe statistical constraints on data to date from African subjects, their BMD is probably not lower than that of the other groups. Since their social circumstances are generally unsatisfactory, this is at first sight surprising and clearly requires further investigation. For persons of the other two groups the statistics are better. There is little discernible difference in the BMD values of the two groups at all ages. Important questions raised in this work include the following. What are the relative contributions of genetic and dietary influences to differences in BMD? This can only be answered by more BMD studies, especially on Africans, and preferably accompanied by investigations of dietary and other relevant habits It is likely that the African diet differs from that of the other groups. But there is evidence to show that such differences are becoming eroded. (Such evidence arises both from dietary surveys and from incidence of the burden of life-style associated diseases.) Future work will include trace element determinations on autopsy samples