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Approved research

Physical Activity and Adult Bone Health: Percentile Rank and Gene Interaction Analyses

Principal Investigator: Dr Jonathan Mitchell
Approved Research ID: 20201
Approval date: November 4th 2016

Lay summary

To overarching goal of our research is to investigate if physical activity (PA) is associated with higher bone mineral density (BMD) in all adults, regardless of sex, genetic susceptibility to bone fragility and percentile BMD rank. Aim 1: Determine whether physical activity associates with higher BMD in adults, regardless of sex. Aim 2: Determine whether physical activity associates with higher BMD in adults, regardless of genetic susceptibility to bone fragility and sex. Aim 3: Determine whether physical activity associates with higher BMD in adults, even for those in the sample with already low BMD. Physical activity is a key behavior that can help to prevent a number of chronic diseases, including chronic diseases related to bone. However, genetic loci have been robustly implicated in osteoporosis and fracture risk and it is not yet known if carriers of bone fragility risk alleles respond equally to physical activity. Furthermore, osteoporosis and fracture are more common among women and it is not known if physical activity equally benefits the skeletons of both sexes. Our research will help to determine if physical activity is a behavioral target for the prevention and treatment of bone fragility among all adults. Participants in the UK biobank completed questionnaires to report physical activity levels, had their bone mineral density estimated by a DEXA scanner, and have had their DNA extracted from blood and genetic variants genotyped. These measurements allow for the estimation of physical activity levels, bone mineral density (BMD), and genetic susceptibility to bone fragility (approximately 70 genetic variants), respectively. With these data we will use statistical methods to determine if physical activity is beneficial to BMD in adults, even if a high proportion of bone fragility genetic variants are carried. We request access to the full cohort to complete this proposed project.