Jackson Laboratory Awarded $892,530 Department of Defense Grant to Study Stress Fracture Susceptibility
Date: October 16, 2003
Bar Harbor, Maine-Basic training builds good military men and women, but it can also take a toll on their bones. Stress fractures are a leading cause of hospitalization in the U.S. military, increasing the time and cost of training and affecting military readiness. The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded The Jackson Laboratory a grant of $892,530 to study the genetic and physiological reasons some soldiers are more susceptible than others to stress fracture injuries.
In healthy, active adults, bones are able to handle the stresses of everyday life by, basically, rebuilding themselves. But increase those stresses dramatically-as, for instance, when recruits enter training or soldiers go into combat-and the incidence of stress fractures rises steeply.
Factors such as lean body mass and bone mineral content affect a person's likelihood to sustain stress factors. So does gender: Female recruits are more than twice as likely as their male comrades in arms to sustain this type of injury, because women typically have lower bone density and less lean body mass. Researchers at The Jackson Laboratory have found that laboratory mice show the same range of muscle and bone characteristics as humans, making them an ideal model for identifying causes of stress fracture susceptibility.
Jackson Laboratory Research Scientist Leah Rae Donahue, Ph.D., the principal investigator on the grant, says, "With this grant we will be developing new diagnostic tools to study bone formation and structure, building databases on bone morphology that researchers worldwide can access publicly, and conducting genetic analyses to better understand inherited muscle-bone relationships."
According to Dr. Donahue, the goal of the research is to facilitate prediction of which people are at risk to get stress fractures. "We'll be able to do new mechanical tests and more refined bone densitometric tests. Then we can bring the genetics component into the equation and make predictions based on the bone and muscle characteristics a patient has inherited from his or her parents.
"If the military can better identify those recruits at risk for stress fractures," Dr. Donahue notes, "and assign them to less physically demanding posts, they can reduce injuries and improve readiness. The same goes for people who are interested in contact sports or sports that involve a lot of force on bone, such as running. If they're at risk for stress fractures, they might choose swimming or other activities that are easier on the bones."
Dr. Donahue's collaborators on the new grant are Jackson Laboratory Senior Staff Scientists Wesley Beamer, Ph.D., and Gary Churchill, Ph.D., Research Associate Molly Vogue, Ph.D., Adjunct Senior Staff Scientist Clifford Rosen, M.D., of the Maine Center for Osteoporosis Research, St. Joseph's Hospital, Bangor, Maine; and Mary Bouxsein, Ph.D., of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston.
Contact(s): Joyce Peterson, The Jackson Laboratory, 207-288 6058, joyce@jax.org
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