Although the same fatality rate was not seen, Melton (2003) estimated that 10% of postmenopausal women are disabled by hip fractures and 19% require institutionalization, this again shows more individual suffering and further economic cost. .
So if the impacts that osteoporosis has are known and with there being no cure, can it be prevented by optimizing gains during childhood and adolescents? In modern society it is commonly seen that physical activity in girls decreases in adolescents (Kimm et al. 2002), meaning BMC benefits from physical activity (PA) and weight bearing exercise (WBE) may be lost. This article will review the literature to discover if there are initial as well as long term health benefits of physical activity on bone mineral density in girls, with a look to prevent osteoporosis later in life, and if so what would be the optimal pubertal status to target this exercise.
Bone Fracture Predictors.
Large amounts of research has shown that bone density can be a strong predictor of fractures, these have been done on a cross sectional scale as well as longitudinal. Hui, Slemenda and Johnston (1988) showed in a study that followed Caucasian women over a 6.5 year period, that midshaft radius bone mass was a strong predictor of forearm fractures. Cummings et al. (1993) also showed that women with bone density in the lowest quartile had an 8-5-fold greater risk than those in the highest quartile. Similar findings were also seen by Wasnich, Ross, Heilbrun, and Vogel (1985), who found that when looking at the calcaneus, subjects in the lowest quintile of calcaneus bone density had a non-spine fracture risk 10 times greater than subjects in the highest quintile. This research shows the impact that BMC can have in later life and why it is important to establish when the optimal time to increase it is. Baxter-Jones, Faulkner, Forwood, Mirwald and Bailey (2011) saw in his data that peri- and post-adolescents is a critical time for bone mineral acquisition.
INTRODUCTION Athletes invest a lot of time and effort in training. Because they are often seeking ways to modify their diets to improve their performances, athletes make easy targets for purveyors of nutrition misinformation. Still, most athletes don't want to miss out on any advantage, whether r...
