The amount of bone in the metacarpal and the phalanx according to age and sex

Do environmental disturbances of an individual's growth and development influence the later bone involution processes? A study of two mediaeval populations

“…For these reasons, one may find in anthropological literature numerous works dealing with the estimation of bone loss based on the examination of the metacarpus. In their studies, particular researchers focused on the following issues: development of the metacarpus (Wolań ski, 1967;Bonnard, 1968;Himes et al, 1975;Kimura, 1978;Becker, 1984;Plato et al, 1984), estimation of the stature based on the measurements of metacarpals in children and adult individuals (Musgrave & Harneja, 1978;Kimura, 1992), estimation of age at death Karasik et al, 1999), effect of climatic conditions on radiomorphometric characteristics of the metacarpus Belkin et al, 1998), methodology of radiometric examination, with particular attention paid to variability and correlations between particular metacarpals and phalanxes (Anderson et al, 1966;Chumlea et al, 1984;Kušec et al, 1990;Garn, 1991;Lazenby, 1995), research, including comparative analyses on the nature and intensity of bone tissue involution (Smith & Rizek, 1966;Spencer et al, 1966;Morgan et al, 1967;Plato & Norris, 1980;Plato et al, 1982;Kušec et al, 1988;Kušec, 1989;Mišigoj-Duraković, 1992).…”

Osteomalacia and osteoporosis

“…Osteomalacia after resection of the distal intestine or in association with regional ileitis is usually the result of a simple deficiency of vitamin D, perhaps due to a failure to absorb the vitamin. On the other hand, the osteomalacia associated with malabsorption due to gluten sensitivity may be partly the result of a resistance to the vitamin (Nassim et al, 1959).…”

“…All these studies show a loss of bone with age which starts earlier and is more rapid in women than men (Meema, 1962;Garn, Rhohman & Nolan, 1964;Nordin, McGregor & Smith, 1966;Smith & Rizek, 1966;Morgan et al, 1967b (Caldwell, 1962;Virtama, Gastrin & Telkka, 1962). Attempts to detect lesser degrees of biconcavity have failed or have been abandoned because of lack of precision (Smith & Rizek, 1966).…”

Bone Loss and Senescence

“…The numbers of persons in each study is given. The data were taken from or calculated from Odland et al, 1958;Meema, 1963;Arnold, 1964;Garn et al, 1967;K rokowski and Stresemann, 1967;Morgan et al, 1967. bone have, in nearly all studies, been measured as changes in the thickness of the cortical layer on radiographs of the bones. G a rn et al [1967] and Smith [1967] have shown that in women the width of the long bones at their midpoint increases with age.…”

“…4. A probit transformation of the frequency of thin bones according to age for the radius and humerus [Meema, 1963] the metacarpal [Morgan et al, 1967] and the vertebrae [Smith and Rizek, 1966]. Thin bones were defined as less than the mean -2 S.D.…”