WOW Populations With Historically Lower-Calcium Diets May Be At Much Lower Risk For Developing Osteoporosis, Study Finds.

“In a study published by Nature that reviewed records from 40 nations worldwide,” investigators “determined that populations with historically lower-calcium diets are at a much lower risk of developing osteoporosis.” Populations that consume dairy products have an expanded diet “with increased calcium and protein intake,” but also exhibit an altered body “homeostasis” as a result, the study indicates. This ecological correlation study explores the marked differential in osteoporosis susceptibility between East and West Africans. African tsetse belt populations are lactase non-persistent (lactose intolerant) and possess none of the genetic polymorphisms carried by lactase persistent (lactose tolerant) ethnic populations. What appears paradoxical, however, is the fact that Niger-Kordofanian (NK) West African ethnicities are also at minimal risk of osteoporosis. Although East Africans share a genetic affinity with NK West Africans, they display susceptibility rates of the bone disorder closer to those found in Europe. Similar to Europeans, they also carry alleles conferring the lactase persistence genetic traits. Hip fracture rates of African populations are juxtaposed with a global model to determine whether it is the unique ecology of the tsetse-infested zone or other variables that may be at work. This project uses MINITAB 17 software for regression analyses. The research data are found on AJOL (African Journals Online), PUBMED and JSTOR (Scholarly Journal Archive). Data showing the risk of osteoporosis to be 80 times higher among East Africans with higher levels of lactase persistence than lactase non-persistence West Africans are compared with global statistics. Hip fracture rates in 40 countries exhibit a high Pearson’s correlation of r=0.851, with P-value=0.000 in relation to dairy consumption. Lower correlations are seen for hip fracture incidence vis-à-vis lactase persistence, per capita income and animal protein consumption. Ethnic populations who lack lactase persistence single-nucleotide polymorphisms may be at low risk of developing osteoporosis. http://www.hcplive.com/medical-news/osteoporosis-risk-vastly-impacted-by-historical-access-to-dairy