Scoliscore - Quo Vadimus?

[Prfbones]

Prfbones



Let's check the definition.


You are correct. Rare is less than 200,000 people in the USA, or 1 in 1,500 people.

Let's get back to your point professor.


Take a look at the newborn screening test again. Every single disease is rare (occurs in less than 1 in 1,500 children). It looks like you were wrong again.

Welcome back to my ignore list PNUTTRO.

/sigh.

Reading comprehension for the loss.

Please re-read. Rare, as it is defined by the NIH is not a ratio. You're math is incorrect. Doing math here is incorrect. A rare disease means that less than 200,000 total people in the US have the disease.

As of July of 2009, there are 307,006,550 people in the US. If the disease prevalence is less than 200,000 of that TOTAL population, it's rare. It's not the total population divided by 200,000, that's what we call a ratio. Which is not what rare is.

Wow again. Thank god he's ignoring me. Normally discourse is very good. But wow, when the reading comprehension is so amazingly low...

BTW, hey Linda Good to see you again!!!

[Prfbones]

Rohrer01

When you've got some evidence to support your hypothesis please post it.

Until that time the I in AIS stands for Idiopathic. We don't know what causes scoliosis. Scientists consider the notion that it's caused by heredity "controversial".

So named in the late 1800's. I wonder if the Sun still revolves around the Earth too.

[Prfbones]

Bird Bones

I do want to discuss why I disregard any bone data from birds. I really didn't explain myself here, but it is an interesting bit of science. Birds and cats don't model well for bone.

We have a saying in the bone world that if you throw two cat bones in a closet and shut the door, when you open the door the next day, you'll have a cat. Cats remodel their bone amazingly fast.

Adult humans remodel their entire skeleton about every 2 years or so. That means, the bones you have today were not the bones you had 2 years ago (give or take). Cats do it in a fraction of that time, even if you correct for lifespan.

What is interesting about that fact (the 2 year skeletal turnover) is that something in a scoliosis patient's DNA must send a constant signal to curve even after growth stops. If scoliosis were environmental, when you take that environmental stimulus (or absence of stimulus) away, your spine would grow straight again, because your bones never stop remodeling themselves.

That happens in scurvy. Take Vitamin C away, and your legs curve out over time. Give back the vitamin C and your legs will grow straight again. Completely environmental. But there's not a single peer-reviewed article in PUBMED that discusses spontaneous reversion of an AIS curve to zero without surgical intervention.

But back to bird data:
The two cells that participate the most in bone remodeling are the osteoclasts and the osteoblasts. Blasts lay down the bone and clasts come behind it and eat it up in a constant cycle. At the molecular level, there's woven bone (soft and spongy) and lamellar bone (the strong bones). Woven bone is the first type of bone that begins the process of remodeling after injury or in a baby's "softspot". Lamellar bone is in our long bones and allows us to carry weight.

Bird bones are mostly woven bone. At adulthood in female birds, the osteoblasts switch from making lamellar bone to only making woven bone. This is because in female birds, the woven bone allows better and more rapid access to calcium that is used for making eggs.

There are quite a few other differences, but that's the really big one. It's just not the same type of bone.

Let me know if that's not clear or if I need to expand on any of that.

[skevimc]

What is interesting about that fact (the 2 year skeletal turnover) is that something in a scoliosis patient's DNA must send a constant signal to curve even after growth stops. If scoliosis were environmental, when you take that environmental stimulus (or absence of stimulus) away, your spine would grow straight again, because your bones never stop remodeling themselves.

That happens in scurvy. Take Vitamin C away, and your legs curve out over time. Give back the vitamin C and your legs will grow straight again. Completely environmental. But there's not a single peer-reviewed article in PUBMED that discusses spontaneous reversion of an AIS curve to zero without surgical intervention.

That's a great example with scurvy and definitely suggests that bones are inclined to form in a particular shape (beyond basic development) even to the point of correcting its shape.

As far as removing the stimulus and spontaneous reversion, I'd want you to expand on that a bit. Because there is a large percentage of scoliosis cases that do revert back to a straight spine. So I'm thinking that you are intending to make a different point, e.g. an established curve with wedged vertebrae.

Stokes' model of vertebral wedging in the rat tail supports the idea that biomechanics plays a big role in progression. So with rapidly remodeling/growing bone, as in puberty, asymmetrical forces applied to the spine could cause wedging absent of a genetic predisposition to grow asymmetrically. Thoughts?

But back to bird data:
The two cells that participate the most in bone remodeling are the osteoclasts and the osteoblasts. Blasts lay down the bone and clasts come behind it and eat it up in a constant cycle. At the molecular level, there's woven bone (soft and spongy) and lamellar bone (the strong bones). Woven bone is the first type of bone that begins the process of remodeling after injury or in a baby's "softspot". Lamellar bone is in our long bones and allows us to carry weight.

Bird bones are mostly woven bone. At adulthood in female birds, the osteoblasts switch from making lamellar bone to only making woven bone. This is because in female birds, the woven bone allows better and more rapid access to calcium that is used for making eggs.

There are quite a few other differences, but that's the really big one. It's just not the same type of bone.

Let me know if that's not clear or if I need to expand on any of that.

Is woven bone different than trabecular bone? Since the vertebral bodies are mostly trabecular bone, it seems like bird spines (at least) would make a decent comparison. Unless the type of trabecular (spongy?) bone is different in birds and humans.


Great to have a bone guy on here. Although apparently you were here before under a different name. Anyway, it's good to talk science.

[Prfbones]

Woven bone is different than trabecular bone. Woven bone is completely disorganized and random in how it is laid down. It can't hold any weight. It doesn't require any existing components to grow from (like other bone or cartridge), it can grow from scratch. Woven bone is seen in the very young.

Trabecular bone is more of an adult bone structure and it can bare weight and it has some organization. You have trabecular bone, but you don't have woven bone (hopefully).

Lots of lay-texts use these two forms of bone interchangeably, but from a histological perspective, that's not the best thing to do.


And as for wedging vert., yes, that's correct:-)))



P.S. More like a bone-girl. Same name, I just have to travel a lot for my job, so I have long periods of non-connectivity.

[rohrer01]

Rohrer01

When you've got some evidence to support your hypothesis please post it.

Until that time the I in AIS stands for Idiopathic. We don't know what causes scoliosis. Scientists consider the notion that it's caused by heredity "controversial".

I don't have a hypothessis. I'm just looking at the information available to me, including what you post.

[Dingo]

splitting hairs

prfbones

Please re-read. Rare, as it is defined by the NIH is not a ratio. You're math is incorrect. Doing math here is incorrect. A rare disease means that less than 200,000 total people in the US have the disease.

As of July of 2009, there are 307,006,550 people in the US. If the disease prevalence is less than 200,000 of that TOTAL population, it's rare. It's not the total population divided by 200,000, that's what we call a ratio. Which is not what rare is.

You are splitting hairs PNUTTRO and obviously it doesn't change the math. Every disease on the newborn screening checklist is rare, i.e. less than 200,000 people in the USA. That's the way genetic disease works in children. You were wrong but that's not really a fair description. More accurately you made up something and counted on the fact that nobody would do a simple google search to check your accuracy.

BTW you never posted a source to support this statement.

I suspect that the male form of AIS may be fatal in-utero in many cases due to the high fluctuations of hormonal activity during that time. That would account for the percentage discrepancy between males and females as well as the overall greater severity of the disease in males.

Believe me I'm always happy to learn something new. If that's true post a link. Personally I'm betting you made that up like so many other things you've said over the past year. It's one reason you ultimately ended up on my ignore list. You mix the truth with nonsense which makes it impossible to figure out what's going on.

[Dingo]

new name, new specialty?

prfbones

Your signature says that you have a Ph.D. in Bone Biology. A few months ago when you went by PNUTTRO you said you were a cancer specialist.

Way to go, I see you are movin' on up!

[LindaRacine]

prfbones

Your signature says that you have a Ph.D. in Bone Biology. A few months ago when you went by PNUTTRO you said you were a cancer specialist.

Way to go, I see you are movin' on up!

LOL... yet another fine assumption from Dingo. ;-)

PNUTTRO and PrfBones are indeed two different people.

[LindaRacine]

BTW, hey Linda Good to see you again!!!

You too Alison!

[Dingo]

Mz

LindaRacine

PNUTTRO and PrfBones are indeed two different people.

If you say so. They must be MZ twins seperated at birth.

[skevimc]

p.s. More like a bone-girl. Same name, i just have to travel a lot for my job, so i have long periods of non-connectivity.

lol... Yet another fine assumption from dingo. ;-)

pnuttro and prfbones are indeed two different people.

oic..

[Pooka1]

So now we have a bone type and a muscle type!!! We are getting up in the world!

Pnuttro is a cancer researcher of some type. She was also a good all-arounder for helping folks sort out the nonsense from science. I loved her posts and learned more biochem from them. I think she reached her limit though.

[Prfbones]

prfbones

Your signature says that you have a Ph.D. in Bone Biology. A few months ago when you went by PNUTTRO you said you were a cancer specialist.

Way to go, I see you are movin' on up!

Did I say I was a cancer specialist? I have a few publications in a field of leukemia closely related to bone, but I'm by no means a cancer specialist.

Reading comprehension for the loss.

I have no idea who PNUTTRO is and I don't have a twin, but since you like to make assumptions based on no data, I now expect nothing less from your posts. I will tell you though, that I do; however, have a brother that died recently of complications at the age of 49 from his severe untreated scoliosis (we have different mothers, she decided not to treat). So this issue is more than close to my heart.

If people want to get funding for this issue, you'll never get it by arguing about environmental causes. Between the agencies that do that funding, NIH doesn't really specialize in environmental causes and the CDC that does specialize in it has MUCH higher priorities. Maybe you could try the EPA, they have some health assessment groups. If you're serious about pursuing an environmental cause for AIS and getting funding, I'd start there. Let us know how that works out for you.

[Dingo]

please post a link

Prfbones

I have no idea who PNUTTRO is and I don't have a twin, but since you like to make assumptions based on no data, I now expect nothing less from your posts.

If you aren't PNUTTRO, sorry that was my mistake.

But back to the point.

I suspect that the male form of AIS may be fatal in-utero in many cases due to the high fluctuations of hormonal activity during that time. That would account for the percentage discrepancy between males and females as well as the overall greater severity of the disease in males.

If you made that up like the stuff you said about the newborn screening test that's fine. But if that's true I'd like to know. If Scoliosis truly is worse in boys... even at a particular age that's interesting. Please post a link.