Qualità Ossea e Osteoporosi: un nuovo metodo di valutazione antropologica su reperti scheletrici umani recenti ed antichi

Osteoporosis is a major health problem in the world; it is an insidious disease that, silently, reduces bone mass making the bones weak and more prone to fractures. The attention that is paid is very great, especially in industrialized countries where the life expectancy is high and in which osteoporosis is becoming a disease with high social impact. In paleopathology, many studies have focused on bone loss in past populations. The aim of these works is to define the traces of a disease that is only apparently modern. The current study investigates a new methodological approach to assess bone health in recent and ancient human skeletal remains. The use of the Quantitative Ultrasonometry (QUS), applied for the first time on skeletal samples, has allowed to evaluate bone tissue identifying characteristics not only related to its mass and density, but also to the structure and to its elastic component. Starting to the differences found between sexes and age, ultrasonometric standard were created to provide a reference point for archaeological and to help identify osteoporosis or simple bone loss cases. The application of this method on a medieval sample has allowed to validate it on an archaeological sample demonstrating its efficacy.