查看文章

Age-related bone fragility fractures present a significant problem for public health. Measures of bone quality are increasingly recognized to complement the conventional bone mineral density (BMD) based assessment of fracture risk. The ability to probe and understand bone quality at the molecular level is desirable in order to unravel how the structure of the organic matrix and its association with mineral contribute to the overall mechanical properties. The ¹³C{³¹P} REDOR MAS NMR (rotational echo double resonance magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance) technique is uniquely suited for the study of the structure of the organic–mineral interface in bone. For the first time, we have applied it successfully to analyze the structure of intact (non-powdered) human cortical bone samples, from young healthy and old osteoporotic donors. Loading problems associated with the rapid rotation of intact bone were …