Bone Abstracts

Epilepsy is a relatively common condition of childhood, with anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) the mainstay of medical therapy. AED use in adults has been shown to be associated with impaired bone density and increased risk of bone fracture. Paediatric data are more limited particularly in relation to fracture risk and skeletal geometry.This study aimed to examine the within-pair differences in fracture prevalence and bone, muscle and balance parameters in sex...

Objectives: The ketogenic diet (KD) is a medically supervised, high fat, low carbohydrate and restricted protein diet which has been used successfully in patients with refractory epilepsy. Only one published report has explored its effect on the skeleton. We postulated that KD impairs bone mass accrual and examined skeletal health parameters in this patient group.Methods: Patients commenced on the KD from 2002–2009 were enrolled in a prospective, lo...

Therapeutic glucocorticoids are still widely used for their anti-inflammatory effects. There are however significant side effects associated with their use. These include effects on bone leading to osteoporosis and fracture but also on muscle (increasing risk of falls) and systemic fuel metabolism (leading to diabetes and increased cardiovascular risk). Research over many decades has tried to develop agents which retain the anti-inflammatory effects of glucocorticoids but have...

Background: Hypocalcemia presenting in adolescence is rare. Most common etiology is autoimmune hypoparathyroidism. Pseudohypoparathyroidism (PHP) is a rare group of disorders characterized by end-organ resistance to parathyroid hormone (PTH), and other hormones, such as TSH, with or without features of Albright’s hereditary osteodystrophy.Case presentation: A 14-year-old boy presented complaining of fatigue and spontaneous carpal spasms in associati...

Muscle mass and strength are known to enhance pediatric gains in bone mineral and bone cross-sectional area, providing a rationale for targeting muscle early in life as a means of improving bone health. We have recently found that the cytokine-like hormone leptin, a well-established adipokine, is abundant in skeletal muscle. Leptin levels normalized for total protein are actually higher in mouse skeletal muscle than in mouse adipose tissue, and studies in human subjects have d...

Biographical DetailsDr HamrickDr Hamrick is Regent’s Professor in the Department of Cellular Biology & Anatomy at the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University (formerly Georgia Health Sciences University), Augusta, Georgia, USA. He received his PhD in Cellular & Integrative Biology from Northwestern University and completed postdo...

Background: Traditional treatment of X-linked Hypophosphatemic Rickets, while beneficial in minimizing disease associated deformity, is limited by development of treatment related complications, including nephrocalcinosis and hyperparathyroidism.Presenting problem: A 10-year-old female with XLH rickets was seen for transfer of ongoing care. She had been treated since birth with Calcitriol and phosphate supplement at typical replacement dosing (18 ng/kg/d...

PHP1B -iPPSD3 per the new proposed classification- is a rare disorder characterized in most patients by proximal tubular resistance to PTH resulting in hypocalcemia, hyperphosphatemia and elevated PTH. Loss-of-methylation (LOM) at the Differentially Methylated Region (DMR) at GNAS exon A/B occurs in all PHP1B patients, but methylation changes at other DMRs within GNAS occur in some familial and most sporadic PHP1B cases. All patients with autosomal dominant PHP1B (AD-...

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Recent meta-analyses of vitamin D without co-administration of calcium have not demonstrated fracture prevention, possibly through lack of power, inappropriate choice of doses, or failure to target the intervention to deficient populations. Bone mineral density (BMD) is able to detect biologically significant effects in much smaller cohorts, so is a relevant surrogate measure with which to re-assess the skeletal efficacy of these supplements. We searched Web of Science, Embase...