Increase in femoral bone density in young women following high-impact exercise.
Healthy premenopausal women were randomized into control and test groups; both exercised weekly in class and daily at home for a year. The test class did intermittent high-impact exercise; the control class did low-impact exercise. Bone density was assessed blind using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry at the femur (neck, Ward's triangle and trochanter) and at the lumbar spine (antero-posterior L1-4) on entry into the study, and again after 6 months (n = 27) and 12 months (n = 19). At 6 months the test group (n = 14) showed a significant increase of 3.4% in trochanteric bone density (p = 0.01) and this was significantly different from control (p = 0.05). In the second 6 months the control group was crossed over to high-impact exercise and showed a significant increase of 4.1% in trochanteric density (n = 7) while the original group maintained their improvement relative to baseline.
Bassey
E J
EJ
Nottingham Osteoporosis Research Group, Queen's Medical Centre, UK.
Ramsdale
S J
SJ
D000328:Adult; D015519:Bone Density / Q000502:physiology*; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005269:Femur / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008159:Lumbar Vertebrae / Q000502:physiology; D011884:Radius / Q000502:physiology; D016037:Single-Blind Method