A Study of Bone Mineral Density in Children

소아의 골밀도에 관한 연구

Objectives : Osteoporosis is generally occurred in old age, especially postmenopausal women therefore, it is relatively overlook osteoporosis in children, but the authors have paid attention to bone density in children because maximizing peak bone mass of childhood is advocated as a way to prevent osteoporosis and environmental factor of childhood play role in the regulation of bone density. the present study was performed to measure bone density of children and to assess the influence of age, sex, body size, exercise, weak symptoms on bone density during the period of bone growth. Methods : We have measured bone density of calcaneus bone in 283 children (male 144 female 139, ranged from3 to 18) who visited in growth clinic of Pediatrics, Dongguk University Bundang Oriental Hospital, using quantitative ultra sound densitometry and they were divided into 3 groups by age(3-10, 11-15, 15-18 years). Pearson's correlation was used to assessed the influence of age, body size and Student's t-test was used to detect differences in sex, exercise, weak symptoms between the groups on bone density Results : The bone density correlated with age, height, weight, body mass index in this study. Bone density were significantly higher in males than in female. Digestive weak children's bone density were lower than normal children. Conclusion : Weight-bearing exercise and food rich in nutrition are necessary to increase maximizing peak bone mass in children.