Bone Hard

Bones are the scaffold around which our whole bodies are built, but they’re not the rock-hard, unchanging structures we might imagine. They are living parts of our body, and their composition and contents can change as we grow and age. The degree of fat inside bone is a useful indicator of conditions like osteosarcopenia – a syndrome encompassing osteoporosis and sarcopenia that can include vitamin D deficiency, and is associated with damaging fractures and falls. Analysing a bone’s contents isn’t straightforward, and muscle and bone mass, assessed by a combination of imaging techniques, is a less accurate indicator often used in diagnosis. A new technique precisely quantifies fat infiltration (pictured, bones visualised at different stages of transparency to reveal their make-up), which should allow much earlier and more accurate diagnosis. This could give patients advance warning of trouble to come, helping them avoid risks and live with greater independence for longer.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

Website

• Image by the Australian Institute for Musculoskeletal Science
• Research by M. Imani, E. Bani Hassan and G. Duque, Australian Institute for Musculoskeletal Science (AIMSS), The University of Melbourne and Western Health, Melbourne, Australia
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research presented at World Congress of Osteoporosis, 2020, See page 552-3