High-intensity activity in adolescence may improve hip bone mineral density later in life
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Moderate to vigorous-intensity physical activity throughout adolescence could improve peak adult hip strength and prevent osteoporosis later in life, according to published results.
Ahmed Elhakeem, PhD, and colleagues from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom identified 2,569 healthy children from a pool of 15,589 infants enrolled into the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children at birth. The final cohort was comprised of children who had obtained valid physical activity measurements at 12, 14, 16 and/or 25 years of age and had successfully participated in four repeated accelerometer assessments, according to the study.
The researchers used accelerometer data to separate the participants into three moderate to vigorous-intensity subgroups and three light-intensity subgroups for each sex. They assessed each participant at 25 years of age for femur neck bone mineral density (BMD) using dual-energy radiography absorptiometry scans of the hip, according to the study.
Of the three moderate to vigorous-intensity subgroups, the high adolescent subgroup (which consisted of the adolescents with the highest, early activity levels) in both male and female participants had the largest improvement in femur neck BMD. The researchers also noted that male participants spent more time in moderate to vigorous-intensity activity and had greater mean adult femur neck BMD than female participants.
“Our finding of an association between hip BMD and geometric parameters and moderate to vigorous-intensity activity, but not light-intensity activity, expands on previous accelerometer-based cross-sectional studies reporting that time spent in moderate to vigorous activity was positively associated with hip BMD and geometry,” the researchers wrote in the study. “If replicated in independent studies, these findings suggest that children’s involvement in moderate to vigorous-intensity physical activity may be beneficial for lasting bone health,” they concluded.
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