College of Nursing and Health Sciences Professor Lands NIH Grant to Study Bone Loss in Postmenopausal Women

By Anne-Marie Kent

What should postmenopausal women do to prevent bone loss due to osteoporosis? Current research is not conclusive. One woman might exercise, take hormone replacement therapy, and see significant increases in bone mineral density. Another might undergo the same regimen and actually lose crucial amounts of bone. A third woman might gain bone without any intervention at all.

UMass Boston researcher, Professor Laurie Milliken of the Exercise Science and Physical Education Department, has received a two-year, $100,000 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to help solve this puzzle.

Milliken's study is a reanalysis of existing data from the Bone, Estrogen, Strength Training (BEST) study, a large NIH-funded research project. Milliken explains that the original aim of the BEST study was to determine the effects of a one-year exercise training program and hormone replacement therapy on bone mineral density in postmenopausal women. Many subjects continued on the exercise program after the year ended, providing additional valuable data.

It was this study that revealed such varied responses to different therapies. "The BEST study provides a really rich database. I know of none other like it that has such a diversity of data," says Milliken, who explains that her work will involve applying advanced statistical procedures on this data. "I think it'sll give us some really useful answers in the end."

Her study will consider questions such as "How does nutrient intake relate to changes in bone?" and "How does the amount of weight lifted affect change in bone?" It will also consider the relative contribution of various individual factors to the change in bone. The BEST database includes information on the volume of exercise performed, leisure time, physical activity, nutritional data, body composition, physical fitness, hormonal data, markers of bone formation and resorption, and psychosocial variables such as self-esteem, depression, quality of life, social support, and barriers to exercise.

"No researchers have put all of these variables together in one analysis," says Milliken. "We're going to be using some advanced statistical procedures to look at this data in a new way. We can put these together in a sophisticated model to get a much clearer picture of what affects bone density."

The new study should help Milliken and other researchers understand why some women respond to hormone replacement and exercise therapies and why some don't. "It would be really valuable to know ahead of time if someone is likely to respond to a therapy," says Milliken, who stresses that hormone replacement therapy choices are best made on a case-by-case basis, given each individual woman's family history of breast cancer and heart disease.

What advice would Milliken give to any postmenopausal woman interested in preserving her bone health? "I would tell her to exercise--to do both aerobic and strength training exercise--and to take calcium." She added that it's also important for older women to educate younger women about bone health, because what girls and young women eat and drink and how often they exercise affect their bone health later on.

Image: Laurie Milliken, associate professor of exercise science and physical education, examines why some postmenopausal women lose bone density and why others do not, weighing such factors as hormone replacement therapy, exercise, nutrition, and psychosocial variables. (Photo by Harry Brett)

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