Not surprising, but structurally interesting
Berkeley Lab materials scientists used x-rays to exam bones from 34 to 99-year old people, in order to see how aging affects bone structure and its ability to resist fracture:
“We found that biological aging increases non-enzymatic cross-linking between the collagen molecules, which suppresses plasticity at nanoscale dimensions, meaning that collagen fibrils can no longer slide with respect to one another as a way to absorb energy from an impact,” [Robert O.] Ritchie says.
“We also found that biological aging increases osteonal density, which limits the potency of crack-bridging mechanisms at micrometer scales.”
© 2011 Lynn Yaris, The Brittleness of Aging Bones – More than a Loss of Bone Mass: Berkeley Lab Researchers Show How Loss of Bone Quality Also a Major Factor, U.S. Department of Energy — Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [Berkeley Lab] (29 August 2011)
Citation
Elizabeth A. Zimmermann, Eric Schaible, Hrishikesh Bale, Holly D. Bartha, Simon Y. Tang, Peter Reichert, Bjoern Busse, Tamara Alliston, Joel W. Ager III, and Robert O. Ritchie, Age-related changes in the plasticity and toughness of human cortical bone at multiple length scales, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [PNAS], doi: 10.1073/pnas.1107966108 (early online publication, 22 August 2011)
Overly optimistic “we can be young forever” advocates need to come to grips with biological complexity
Five centuries after Ponce de León, we’re still looking for the Fountain of Youth.
Everything degrades, eventually.
Tagged: aging, Berkeley Lab, Bjoern Busse, bone, bone density, break, brittleness, collagen, compact, cortical, Elizabeth A. Zimmermann, Eric Schaible, Fountain of Youth, fracture, Holly D. Bartha, Hrishikesh Bale, Joel W. Ager III, Lynn Yaris, materials science, naonscale, Peter Reichert, plasticity, Ponce de León, Robert O. Ritchie, Simon Y. Tang, Tamara Alliston, xray