Is Osteoporosis Simply Fat Filling Up Old Bones?
Related News: Bone and CartilageBack in the 1930's, doctors found in autopsies, that inside the bones, deep in the marrow, fat cells had grown. Furthermore, as the people got older, the more their bones were filling with fat. This may not sound that hot an issue, but for sufferers of Osteoporosis, this news is the beginning of something that will certainly have an impact going forward.
"You start out with basically zero fat," said Dr. Jeffrey Gimble of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La. "At the time of birth, you have just a little bit of fat in the bones of your fingertips."
But by age 30, he said, half or more of bone marrow cells are replaced by fat. And in the elderly, almost all the marrow has turned to fat.
"People did not pay much attention," said Dr. Clifford J. Rosen of the Maine Center for Osteoporosis Research and Education and the Jackson Laboratory in Bangor, Me. "They thought it was just an aging process."
More and more however, researchers have been looking into if something else may be involved. In their research, they have found that there is a stem cell in bone marrow that can turn into fat or bone. In osteoporosis, bone cavities where most thought were just empty spaces appear to be actually filled with fat.
As a consequence, patients with osteoporosis have more fat in their bones than do people of the same age who do not have the disease. Additionally, other factors that contribute to bone loss also leads to accumulation of fat within the bones.
"People started asking, Gee, is this really true?" said Dr. Jane E. Aubin of the University of Toronto. "Is there really a reciprocal relationship between bone and fat?"
And that, Dr. Aubin said, led to an intriguing question: could osteoporosis be prevented or reversed by pushing stem cells to become bone instead of fat?
Posted on July 27, 2005 04:57 PM