TWO genetic quirks that make women extra-vulnerable to hip fractures have been revealed by a study of post-menopausal women.
Tuan Nguyen at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, and his team followed the progress of 677 post-menopausal women for 14 years to hunt for gene variants that might put them at risk. In that time 69 of the women fractured a hip.
Two genes emerged as significant: vitamin D receptor (VDR), which is involved in calcium processing, and collagen alpha 1 (COLIA1), which produces the main structural protein of bone.
Women with two copies of a particular…
