Chiled Care - Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis a childhood

ailment that strikes later?

Washington: Osteoporosis, long considered as a disease of the elderly, could actually e a pediatric ailment which surfaces later in life, says a study.

        "While the importance of calcium nutrition throughout childhood and adolescence is well recognized, our work suggests that calcium nutrition of the neonate may be of greater importance to lifelong bone health due to its programming effects on mesenchymal stem cells," Dr Chad Stahl from the North Carolina State University, said.

          "It also points to a potential paradigm shift in which health professionals might want to begin thinking about osteoporosis not so much as a disease of the elderly, but instead as a pediatric disease with later onset," said Stahl.

        Stahl and his team studied the nutritional regulation of growth and development for which they used neonatal pig as a surrogate for the human infant. The team bottle-fed 12 piglets a calcium-rich diet and another 12 piglets a calcium deficient diet during the first 18 days life.

        In both the groups, the team found no differeces in terms of blood markers of calcium status and growth, but there was a marked difference in bone density and strength such that the calcium-deficient piglets were compromised.

       An analysis of the bone marrow tissue showed that many of the calcium-deficient piglets' cells appeared to have already been programmed to become fat cells instead of bone-forming osteoblast cells.

        As per the research, fewer osteoblast cells in early life may lead to a reduced ability for bones to grow and repair throughout the remainder of life, thus suggesting that early calcium nutrition may have more impact than earlier thought.