Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Renaissance School of Medicine, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2020 Jul;172(3):492-499. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.24014. Epub 2020 Jan 31.
South African Africans have been reported to have experienced negative or null secular trends in stature and other measures of skeletal structure across the 19th and 20th centuries, presumably due to poor living conditions during a time of intensifying racial discrimination. Here, we investigate whether any secular trend is apparent in limb bone strength during the same period.
Cadaver-derived skeletons (n = 221) were analyzed from female and male South African Africans who were born between 1839 and 1970, lived in and around Johannesburg, and died between 1925 and 1991 when they were 17-90 years of age. For each skeleton, a humerus and femur were scanned using computed tomography, and mid-diaphyseal cross-sectional geometric properties were calculated and scaled according to body size.
In general linear mixed models accounting for sex, age at death, and skeletal element, year of birth was a significant (p < .05) negative predictor of size-standardized mid-diaphyseal cortical area (a proxy for resistance to axial loading) and polar moment of area (a proxy for resistance to bending and torsion), indicating a temporal trend toward diminishing limb bone strength. No significant interactions were detected between year of birth and age at death, suggesting that the decline in limb bone strength was mainly due to changes in skeletal maturation rather than severity of age-related bone loss.
Limb bone strength is thus potentially another feature of the skeletal biology of South African Africans that was compromised by poor living conditions during the 19th and 20th centuries.
据报道，南非非洲人在 19 世纪和 20 世纪经历了身高和其他骨骼结构测量指标的负面或零世代趋势，这可能是由于种族歧视加剧时期的恶劣生活条件所致。在这里，我们研究在同一时期四肢骨骼强度是否存在任何世代趋势。
从 1839 年至 1970 年出生、居住在约翰内斯堡及其周边地区、1925 年至 1991 年死亡时年龄在 17 至 90 岁的南非非洲男女尸体中分析了 221 具骨骼。对于每个骨骼，使用计算机断层扫描扫描了肱骨和股骨，并根据身体大小计算和缩放了中轴截面的几何特性。
在考虑性别、死亡年龄和骨骼元素的一般线性混合模型中，出生年份是大小标准化中轴皮质面积（轴向载荷阻力的代表）和极截面矩（弯曲和扭转阻力的代表）的显著（p < 0.05）负预测因子，表明四肢骨骼强度随时间呈下降趋势。出生年份和死亡年龄之间未检测到显著的相互作用，这表明四肢骨骼强度的下降主要是由于骨骼成熟度的变化，而不是与年龄相关的骨丢失的严重程度。
因此，四肢骨骼强度是南非非洲人骨骼生物学的另一个潜在特征，在 19 世纪和 20 世纪恶劣的生活条件下受到了损害。
