ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2014
Physical activity when young provides lifelong benefits to cortical bone size and strength in men.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 99 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
99 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Does Swimming Exercise Impair Bone Health? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Comparing the Evidence in Humans and Rodent Models.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2024Pooled it
- Age at Onset of Walking in Infancy Is Associated With Hip Shape in Early Old Age.Journal of bone and mineral research : the official journal of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research · 2019Trial
- Motor Competence in Early Childhood Is Positively Associated With Bone Strength in Late Adolescence.Journal of bone and mineral research : the official journal of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research · 2016Trial
- Biomechanical evidence for occupational specialization in Mesolithic-Neolithic hunter-gatherers from Zvejnieki, Latvia.Science advances · 2026Article
- Dynamics of postnatal bone development and epiphyseal synostosis in the caprine autopod.Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists · 2026Article
- Bone health: Age-related changes in diaphyseal structural properties among European Holocene humans during the last 9000 years.Science advances · 2025Article
- The skeletal transcriptional response to mechanical load varies with age and tissue compartment in female mice.JBMR plus · 2025Article
- Predicting cortical bone resorption in the mouse tibia under disuse conditions caused by transient muscle paralysis.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Bioenergetic programs of cancellous and cortical bone are distinct and differ with age and mechanical loading.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Bone Accrual Trajectories in Children and Adolescents With Perinatal HIV Infection.The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2025Article
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- Toward a clear relationship between mechanical signals and bone adaptation.Mechanobiology in medicine · 2025Review
- Tibial Skeletal Adaptations in Male and Female Marine Corps Officer Candidates Undergoing 10 Weeks of Military Training.Calcified tissue international · 2025Article
- Effect of Eight Months of Swimming on Bone Quality of Different Anatomical Regions: A Study on Wistar Rat Models.Calcified tissue international · 2025Article
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- Age-related Differences in Volumetric Bone Mineral Density, Structure, and Bone Strength of Surgical Neck of Humerus in Postmenopausal Women.Orthopaedic surgery · 2024Article
- Identification of Osteosarcopenia by High-Resolution Peripheral Quantitative Computed Tomography.Journal of personalized medicine · 2024Article
- Evolutionary and functional analyses of LRP5 in archaic and extant modern humans.Human genomics · 2024Article
- Are associations between physical activity and bone mineral density in adults sex- and age-dependent? An analysis of the UK Biobank study.Journal of bone and mineral research : the official journal of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research · 2024Article
39 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The skeleton shows greatest plasticity to physical activity-related mechanical loads during youth but is more at risk for failure during aging. Do the skeletal benefits of physical activity during youth persist with aging? To address this question, we used a uniquely controlled cross-sectional study design in which we compared the throwing-to-nonthrowing arm differences in humeral diaphysis bone properties in professional baseball players at different stages of their careers (n = 103) with dominant-to-nondominant arm differences in controls (n = 94). Throwing-related physical activity introduced extreme loading to the humeral diaphysis and nearly doubled its strength. Once throwing activities ceased, the cortical bone mass, area, and thickness benefits of physical activity during youth were gradually lost because of greater medullary expansion and cortical trabecularization. However, half of the bone size (total cross-sectional area) and one-third of the bone strength (polar moment of inertia) benefits of throwing-related physical activity during youth were maintained lifelong. In players who continued throwing during aging, some cortical bone mass and more strength benefits of the physical activity during youth were maintained as a result of less medullary expansion and cortical trabecularization. These data indicate that the old adage of "use it or lose it" is not entirely applicable to the skeleton and that physical activity during youth should be encouraged for lifelong bone health, with the focus being optimization of bone size and strength rather than the current paradigm of increasing mass. The data also indicate that physical activity should be encouraged during aging to reduce skeletal structural decay.
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