Exercise in Youth Cuts Fracture Risk

Keep those young people moving. Results from two studies by Bjorn E. Rosengren, M.D., Ph.D. from Skane University Hospital in Malmo, Sweden, indicated that exercise at a young age can improve bone growth and reduce fracture risk in old age. “Despite the limitations of our studies, we can conclude that strength training in young years should be utilized as a strategy to improve bone traits and seems a plausible strategy to decrease fragility fractures at advanced ages, ” he said.

For the first study Rosengren and his colleagues used data from the Pediatric Osteoporosis Prevention study. They followed 362 girls and 446 boys for six years. The youth all received 40 minutes of physical activity per day. A control sample consisted of 780 girls and 807 boys from three Swedish schools who received 60 minutes of physical activity per week.

“Our school-based exercise did, after the first six years, result in higher gain in bone mass in both boys and girls, higher gain in skeletal size in girls and did not affect the fracture risk, ” Rosengren said. Both boys and girls had higher spine bone mineral density (BMD), while girls had a higher femoral neck BMD than did the boys at follow-up.

The second study was a retrospective, cross-sectional one that included a subsample of 46 athletes who had their BMD measured during their active career and measured against 24 people in a control group. The athletes had a 50% lower fracture risk after retirement than did the control group, according to Rosengren. “In all athletes, BMD was higher during their active career and was also higher a mean 29 years after their retirement from sport, ” Rosengren added.