Studies of osteoporosis in South Africa using isotope-related and other techniques. Progress report: December 1994 - July 1998

Since the previous report a large number of additional females have been measured and, for the first time, male subjects also. There remains a lack of data from male African subjects and also data for the youngest subjects. The non dominant side was chosen for the measurements, this of course normally being the left. Beyond the usual age of the menopause there is a slight fall in BMD for females. Data from African subjects is clearly not significantly lower that that of the other races, in spite of contrary expectations resulting from less privileged social and economic circumstances. Statistics continue to be better for European and Mixed Racial Origin subjects, than for Africans. The SDs are of course of little significance when calculated for very few data in a group, but when numbers exceed 10 or 20 the SD, when considered in conjunction with the tabulated means, shows that there is little difference in BMD between the three ethnic groups. It still remains to be determined what are the relative contributions of genetic and dietary influences to differences in BMD. Further BMD studies, especially in Africans, preferably accompanied by investigations of dietary and other relevant habits will be necessary to answer such questions. In the rural setting, the African diet differs from that of the other groups. But there is evidence to show that such differences are becoming greatly reduced with the rapidly increasing urbanisation being experienced in South Africa and in most other African countries