EXERCISE BRINGS BONE
BENEFITS THAT LAST
Building bone as a young adult
can have benefits that last a lifetime,
Healthy Living | Summer Issue | 2018 9
a new study showed. The
research also confirmed that
physical activity as we get older
can help us maintain bone
strength.
Bone is a living tissue. It
responds to physical activity by
becoming heavier, bigger, and
stronger. It does this best when
we’re young. Bone mass usually
peaks when we’re in our 20s. After
that, we often begin to lose
bone.
Studies of animals have
shown that exercise during periods
of rapid growth can lead
to lifelong benefits in bone size
and strength.
To see if the same holds
true for humans, a team of
NIH-funded scientists studied
more than 100 professional
baseball players at different
stages of their careers. Baseball
players were ideal subjects, because
their throwing arms get
a lot more action than their
non-throwing arms. Baseball
players also tend to retire from
stressful throwing activities once
they stop professional play. This
allowed the scientists to look at
the effects of physical activity
long after intense throwing had
ended
The researchers found that
the upper bones in the throwing
arms of players were nearly
twice as strong as the bones in
non-throwing arms. Throwing
arm bones had about 50% greater
mass, size (total cross-sectional
area), and thickness.
As players got older, the
bone mass benefits from throwing
were gradually lost. But
about half the bone size benefits
and one-third of the bone
strength benefits were maintained
lifelong. Players who
continued throwing during aging
lost less bone and kept even
more of the strength benefits.
“Exercise during youth adds
extra layers to the outer surface
of a bone to essentially make
the bone bigger,” says study
leader Dr. Stuart J. Warden of
Indiana University. “The bigger
bone generated by physical activity
when young has a means
of sticking around long term to
keep the skeleton stronger.”
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