Science / Medicine : Mother-Daughter Link Found in Osteoporosis
<i> From Times staff and wire service reports </i>
Daughters of women with osteoporosis appear to be at increased risk of developing the bone-thinning disease, Australian researchers reported last week. Dr. Ego Seeman and his colleagues at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne compared 32 women whose mothers had osteoporosis to 22 women whose mothers did not have the disease, which affects roughly 20 million Americans.
In results published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers found that daughters of osteoporosis patients were more likely to have thinner bones than daughters of healthy women.
“We conclude that daughters of women with osteoporosis have a reduced bone mass . . . and this reduction in bone mass may put them at increased risk for fractures,” the researchers wrote.
