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The Physiological Basis of Treatment

MARC MOLDAWER, M.D.

AMA Arch Intern Med. 1955;96(2):202-214.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

OSTEOPOROSIS is as universal an alteration of aging bone as is osteoarthritis of aging joints. Together these comprise the main symptom-producing manifestations of skeletal senility. Although osteoporosis appears to be physiological in aging bone, its degree is very variable from person to person.

PATHOLOGICAL PHYSIOLOGY

Pathologically, osteoporotic bone is characterized by fewer and less thick trabeculae. Functionally such bone is more susceptible to compression and fracture, but until fracture occurs there is preservation of bone contour.

So far as is now known, there is no biochemical difference between the thin trabeculae and those of normal presenile bone; the protein matrix is the same, as is the bone salt, which is deposited in the matrix in an apatite crystal lattice. The ratio of minerals to matrix is probably the same in osteoporotic as in normal bone.

The skeleton is normally in a state of dynamic equilibrium, with bone resorption and bone . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Boston

From Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital; Milton Research Fellow in Medicine.

Footnotes
Submitted for publication May 2, 1955.

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