Sunspots and hip fractures.
In this paper a remarkable statistical link between sunspot cycles and prevalence of hip fractures in the elderly is shown. Hip fractures in old people are due to: 1. increased bone fragility for metabolic bone disease; 2. increased propension to fall. Though it is obvious that a correlation does not imply any causal relationship, reasonable conjectures can be allowed. The hypothesis of an 11-year cyclic variation of ultraviolet radiation as a cause of hip fractures is untenable; one may better assume that solar flares can negatively influence the nervous postural regulation leading to a greater propensity to accidental falls.
Dipartimento di Ortopedia, Università di Siena, Italy.
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Caniggia
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Scala
D005260:Female; D006620:Hip Fractures / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D008685:Meteorological Concepts; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013057:Spectrum Analysis