Ethnic difference in osteoporosis-related phenotypes and its potential underlying genetic determination. J Musculoskelet Neuronal Interact 2006;6(1):36-46
Date
05/06/2006Pubmed ID
16675888Scopus ID
2-s2.0-33646686195 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 52 CitationsAbstract
Osteoporosis is a serious health problem in both Caucasians and Asians. Caucasians and Asians are two distinct major ethnic groups, which may have differential genetic determination underlying complex genetic diseases such as osteoporosis. However, to date, there has been no systematic review focusing on the aspect of ethnic difference in risk to osteoporosis and its potential underlying genetic determination between Asians and Caucasians. Here, we firstly review diverse aspects of osteoporosis-related differences, including the differences of epidemiology of osteoporotic fractures, peak bone mass, bone loss, bone area, bone geometry and drug treatment response between Asians and Caucasians. Then, we provide some potential genetic evidence on the different heritability and inheritance mode of bone phenotypes, the different osteoporosis candidate genes and the differential results in related molecular studies between them, to explain the above osteoporosis-related phenotypic differences. The results suggest that the osteoporosis-related phenotypic differences between Asians and Caucasians may be partially the result of the different ethnic genetic background. The present review may increase our understanding of potential different mechanisms related to ethnicity in pathogenesis of osteoporosis for effective and potentially customized treatments in different major ethnic groups.
Author List
Lei SF, Chen Y, Xiong DH, Li LM, Deng HWMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AdolescentAdult
Bone and Bones
Child
Female
Genetic Predisposition to Disease
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Osteoporosis
Phenotype
