ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Gracility of the modern Homo sapiens skeleton is the result of decreased biomechanical loading.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
54 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 175 citations in OpenAlex.
- The utility of dried blood spot measurement of bone turnover markers in biological anthropology.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2022Pooled it
- The impact of footwear on human talar trabecular architecture.Journal of anatomy · 2026Article
- Nasal Gracilization in Sri Lankan Indigenous Vedda: Phenotypic Plasticity and Evolutionary Continuity.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Article
- Growing together: Developmental integration and modularity in the human talus-calcaneus complex.Journal of anatomy · 2026Article
- Rib Cross-Sectional Mineralized Area in Early Pleistocene Hominins: Insights From the Homo antecessor and H. erectus s. l. Fossil Record.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Article
- Too Many Bones to Pick - from Overproduction to Refinement: Evidence for Trabecular Pruning in Early Postnatal Development as a Distinct Phase of Skeletal Functional Adaptation.Annals of biomedical engineering · 2026Review
- Viewing low back pain through the lens of spinal evolution: Understanding the morphology and limits of the human spine.PloS one · 2026Article
- Locomotor signals in the trabecular structure of the hominoid clavicle.Journal of anatomy · 2025Article
- Trabecular Architecture of the Proximal Tibia in Extant Hominids.American journal of biological anthropology · 2025Article
- Wild bonobos experience unusually low bone resorption during early lactation relative to humans and other mammals.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Contemporary small-scale subsistence populations offer unique insights into human musculoskeletal health and aging.Science advances · 2024Review
- Unraveling the Evolutionary Diet Mismatch and Its Contribution to the Deterioration of Body Composition.Metabolites · 2024Review
- Genomic imputation of ancient Asian populations contrasts local adaptation in pre- and post-agricultural Japan.iScience · 2024Article
- Evolutionary and functional analyses of LRP5 in archaic and extant modern humans.Human genomics · 2024Article
- Identification of functionally related adaptations in the trabecular network of the proximal femur and tibia of a bipedally trained Japanese macaque.Anthropological science : journal of the Anthropological Society of Nippon = Jinruigaku zasshi · 2024Article
- Exploring the Intricate Links between Adenotonsillar Hypertrophy, Mouth Breathing, and Craniofacial Development in Children with Sleep-Disordered Breathing: Unraveling the Vicious Cycle.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Leveraging mice with diverse microbial exposures for advances in osteoimmunology.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2023Article
- Morphologies in-between: The impact of the first steps on the human talus.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2023Article
- Ontogenetic Patterning of Human Subchondral Bone Microarchitecture in the Proximal Tibia.Biology · 2022Article
- Effects of reduced mobility on trabecular bone density in captive big cats.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The postcranial skeleton of modern Homo sapiens is relatively gracile compared with other hominoids and earlier hominins. This gracility predisposes contemporary humans to osteoporosis and increased fracture risk. Explanations for this gracility include reduced levels of physical activity, the dissipation of load through enlarged joint surfaces, and selection for systemic physiological characteristics that differentiate modern humans from other primates. This study considered the skeletal remains of four behaviorally diverse recent human populations and a large sample of extant primates to assess variation in trabecular bone structure in the human hip joint. Proximal femur trabecular bone structure was quantified from microCT data for 229 individuals from 31 extant primate taxa and 59 individuals from four distinct archaeological human populations representing sedentary agriculturalists and mobile foragers. Analyses of mass-corrected trabecular bone variables reveal that the forager populations had significantly higher bone volume fraction, thicker trabeculae, and consequently lower relative bone surface area compared with the two agriculturalist groups. There were no significant differences between the agriculturalist and forager populations for trabecular spacing, number, or degree of anisotropy. These results reveal a correspondence between human behavior and bone structure in the proximal femur, indicating that more highly mobile human populations have trabecular bone structure similar to what would be expected for wild nonhuman primates of the same body mass. These results strongly emphasize the importance of physical activity and exercise for bone health and the attenuation of age-related bone loss.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.