The researchers discovered that females who had given birth had lower levels of calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus.
A study of primates reveals permanent changes in bone composition after birth and breastfeeding.
Reproduction permanently alters females’ bones in ways not previously known, a team of anthropologists has found. Its discovery, based on an analysis of a kind of primate known as rhesus monkeys, sheds new light on how giving birth can permanently change the body.
A group of anthropologists has discovered that reproduction permanently changes women’s bones in ways that were not previously known. The discovery, based on an analysis of rhesus monkeys, gives new insight into how birth can permanently alter the body.
“Our findings provide additional evidence of the profound impact that reproduction has on the female organism, further demonstrating that the skeleton is not a static organ, but a dynamic one that changes with life events,” explains Paola Cerrito, who led the research as a doctoral student in New York University’s Department of Anthropology and College of Dentistry.
The scientists discovered that females who gave birth had lower calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus concentrations. These changes are connected to giving birth itself and to lactation.
They do, however, issue a warning that although prior clinical studies have shown the importance of calcium and phosphorus for healthy bones, the current findings address overall health implications for either primates or humans. Rather, they assert that the study reveals the dynamic nature of our bones.
Microscope images of the cross-section of the seven femora (thigh bones) included in this study, identified by age and sex. Credit: Paola Cerrito and Timothy Bromage
“A bone is not a static and dead portion of the skeleton,” notes NYU anthropologist Shara Bailey, one of the study’s authors. “It continuously adjusts and responds to physiological processes.”
Timothy Bromage, a professor at NYU College of Dentistry, Bin Hu, an adjunct professor also at NYU, Justin Goldstein, a Ph.D. student at Texas State University, and Rachel Kalisher, a doctoral student at Brown University, are the other authors of the study, which was published in the journal PLOS ONE.
It’s been long-established that menopause can have an effect on females’ bones. Less clear is how preceding life-cycle events, such as reproduction, can influence skeletal composition. To address this, the researchers studied the primary lamellar bone—the main type of bone in a mature skeleton. This aspect of the skeleton is an ideal part of the body to examine because it changes over time and leaves biological markers of these changes, allowing scientists to monitor alterations during the lifespan.
In the PLOS ONE study, the researchers examined the growth rate of lamellar bone in the femora, or thigh bones, of both female and male primates who had lived at the Sabana Seca Field Station in Puerto Rico and died of natural causes. Veterinarians at the field station monitored and recorded information on these primates’ health and reproductive history, allowing the researchers to match bone-composition changes to life events with notable precision.
Cerrito and her colleagues used electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis—commonly deployed methods to gauge the chemical composition of tissue samples—to calculate changes in concentrations of calcium, phosphorus, oxygen, magnesium, and sodium in the primates’ bones.
Their results showed different concentrations of some of these elements in females who gave birth compared to males as well as females who did not give birth. Specifically, in females who gave birth, calcium and phosphorus were lower in the bone formed during reproductive events. Moreover, there was a significant decline in magnesium concentration during these primates’ breastfeeding of infants.
“Our research shows that even before the cessation of fertility the skeleton responds dynamically to changes in reproductive status,” says Cerrito, now a research fellow at ETH Zurich. “Moreover, these findings reaffirm the significant impact giving birth has on a female organism—quite simply, evidence of reproduction is ‘written in the bones’ for life.”
Reference: “Elemental composition of primary lamellar bone differs between parous and nulliparous rhesus macaque females” by Paola Cerrito, Bin Hu, Justin Z. Goldstein, Rachel Kalisher, Shara E. Bailey and Timothy G. Bromage, 1 November 2022, PLOS ONE.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0276866
The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
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