Talk:Bone/Archive 1

Big bones?
There's wide spread talk especially in the weight loss field that humans have varying bone mass, with some being "big boned". Is there any truth in that, since I've read that the bone mass is usually ~20 pounds, which doesn't seem like much that can vary to make people heavy, unless it's common with people to have, say, 200% bone mass compared to the usual. :-/ Often, these people refer to "big bones run in my family". Can anyone with medical knowledge confirm or deny the "big bones" thing? It would be nice to have the total bone mass in this article, possibly along with mentioning this topic. -- Jugalator 08:41, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe the "big boned" expression actually stems from medical facts. It's use seems to pre-date the invention of the medical technology to measure bone mass. I'm sure you've noticed that some people have larger frames than others. Assume you have two males of the same height, but their chest size differs by 6-8". While the one with the larger torso appears larger/fatter, it's entirely possible that his rib cage is visible through the skin, while the narrower male has a an inch or more of fat covering his. I believe it's from something like this that the big boned expression came to be. In any event, you're interested in hard data & facts, not my conjectures. According to IRPA, bone accounts for 5kg (11lbs) in the 70kg Reference Male and 3.778kg (~8lbs) in the 60kg Reference Female. There is also a link between Body Mass Index and Bone Mineral Content. The Total Body Bone Mineral Content for thin, normal, overweight and obese was 2.2, 2.4, 2.8 and 3.1 kg, respectively. (I'm aware that this clashes with IRPA's Reference Female, but I'm just repeating data.) It does appear that obese people have greater bone mineral content, but this doesn't contribute significantly to the overall weight, nor should it be considered a reason for being classified overweight. In other words, the direction of the correlation is questionable. Perhaps when one becomes overweight, the bones grow simply because there is an excess of nutrients or to accomodate the larger burden being handled by the body. I suspect that if any of the obese subjects lost weight, they would also lose some bone mineral content (but that's just my opinion). I've seen a few notes of bone density being affected by leptin, but some studies show a negative effect, while some show a positive. As far as I'm concerned, there is no consensus on the relation between leptin and bone density. I haven't looked for anything about bone mass that is 200% of the average, but even if it's the case, that would be at most 20 lbs, hardly enough to contribute to obesity (unless the person was extremely short). I hope this helps. --jag123 10:06, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * IRPA Reference Man: http://www.irpa.net/irpa10/cdrom/00602.pdf
 * Bone mass, bone metabolism, Gonadal status and body mass index (Pubmed: 12086348)


 * I'm in a biomaterials grad course at the moment, and bones do indeed strengthen in response to stress, and weaken in the absence of stress. This is most apparent in cosmonauts (astronauts don't tend to stay up as long), but can also be seen when implants shield a bone from stress and prevent it from healing, or apply concentrated stress and promote uneven bone thickening.  I hear some of the best experiments have been from birds with their wings tied back.
 * I think "big boned" is a classic case of metonymy, with bones standing for muscles and other connective tissue (pretty heavy, all told) as well as themselves. The English language doesn't predate surgical & anatomical knowledge, much less this particular expression, and agricultural types know more about (farm animal) anatomy & physiology than most folks in cities, but that wouldn't stop them from using a figure of speech now and then.--Joel 01:14, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm training in orthopaedic surgery and would like to weigh in (pardon the pun).
 * My experience of the expression "big boned" it that is less a case of it being a metonymy and more a case of it being a euphemism for obesity. Sure, there are differences between individuals with respect to overall bone mass, but as Joel points out; there's not that much difference in it.  It's usually more to do with diet and lifestyle than genetics.
 * The reason for the association between bone mineral density and BMI is that bone is a dynamic organ. Bone remodels itself continuously in response to various stimuli, in particular, loading and axial compression forces.  So, if you're morbidly obese, osteoblasts lay down more lamellar (like cortical) bone (with a high mineral content) to try to prevent you spontaneously fracturing under your own weight.  Unfortunately it doesn't always work. Nonetheless, that explains why obese people have a lower incidence of Osteoporosis than people with normal range or low BMIs.
 * Obese people who lose weight tend not to lose much bone density becuse they are increasing their exercise. Weight bearing exercise is highly recommended as a preventative measure for osteoporosis. --Mattopaedia 03:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Appositional Bone Formation
Although intramembranous and endochondral bone formation are the two ways that new bones are formed (i.e. skeletogenesis), it is not the only way that bone tissue is formed.

New bone tissue can also form by appositional bone growth (i.e. bone growing on the surface of existing bone). This mechanism can be important for fracture repair.

This information can be found in most orthopaedic texts.

Aaron 09:21, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

bone remodelling
I think there should be a section on bone remodelling. I'm not an expert so I can't write it but I think that it should be useful for this article. Maybe, there can be a new article on bone remodelling. I hope some one is interested in my suggestion.Wai Hong 01:27, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Bones outside the body
No mention in this article of uses of bone in industry/manufacture and tool making for early humans.

It is in the category Category:Bone products but these items should be mentioned in this article.--ZayZayEM 12:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Are bones really what is stated in the introduction.
"Bone, also called osseous tissue, (Latin: "os") is a type of hard endoskeletal connective tissue found in many vertebrate animals. Bones support body structures, protect internal organs, and (in conjunction with muscles) facilitate movement; are also involved with cell formation, calcium metabolism, and mineral storage."

Isn't bone, when saying it "supports body structures, protects internal organs, and (in conjunction with muscles) facilitates movement" rather an organ of a lot of various tissues (nerves, epithelia [in the blood vessels], cartilage and blood?) than "a type of hard endoskeletal connective tissue"? It might be just me but I think the sentence cited above is somewhat unstringent. --Warfvinge 15:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It is pretty complex linguistically. Bone is the tissue discussed above in the lead. Bones are the organs you describe, and they form the integral part of the Skeletal system. English has its limitations sometimes - though I'm sure there is probably an uncommon linguistic differentiator between Bone (tissue) and Bones (organs).--ZayZayEM 23:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Allright, thank you. I made a small edit in the introduction to clarify that, you're welcome to revert if it is inadequate. --Warfvinge 11:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Osseous tissue has its own page I noticed. Perhaps a bit of divurgence between the terms with a uses tag should be used. If so I'd recommend that Osseous tissue remain to deal with bone-as-a-tissue; while this article be moved to bones and deal with bones-as-organs. Bone could be a disambig to bone-as-tissue, bones-as-organs, bone-as-material, bones-as-tools, Bones-as-a-TV-show, Bones-as-a-name etc.

I'm in process of converting the page over to bones as organs rather than bones as tissues, I put in a brief discussion on the osseous tissue page on the difference between bones (organs) and bone (tissue). What do people think of re-naming the page Bone (organ) and re-naming Bone (disambiguation) to just Bone?

Expect this to be a stop and start process, as I'm not sure I'll have the time to do it all in one go - please help! WLU 00:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Wrong!
"Sesamoid bones are bones embedded in tendons. Since they act to hold the tendon further away from the joint, the moment arm of the tendon is increased"

This is simply not true. If you´ve read some physics you would know that the moment arm is not increased (the tendon is stuck remember). It´s the tendons angle against tibia that increases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.96.164.28 (talk) 16:08, January 11, 2007 (UTC)


 * The literature would seem to disagree with you. From the abstract from Am J Phys Antropol (2003);121(1):30-47 PMID:12687581
 * "Stresses at the distal interphalangeal joint are indicated by the presence of a sesamoid bone within the volar (palmar) plate, which also increases the length of the flexor pollicis longus tendon moment arm."


 * Also from Clin Orthop Relat Res (1996);(325):209-17 PMID:8998878
 * "Statistical analysis showed that significant decreases in the effective tendon moment arms occurred with full medial sesamoid resection" ie. removing the sesamoid bones caused a decrease in the tendon moment arm.

163.1.64.145 (talk) 10:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism
Someone vandalised the page, but accidentally added some info at the same time - a bird's beak is made of bone, covered in a thin layer of keratin. Now, the question is, does this count as exosed bone, or is it in the wrong section? WLU 18:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey, WLU - I think the bird's beaks should be omitted from the article, myself. I was doing just that, parrying your rework, but got caught in some cyber-vortex and my change didn't go through. Figma 19:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I just did a minor re-word of the sentence, if you still think it doesn't apply feel free to take it out. WLU 19:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Bones do conduct electricity. Furthermore, when a bone is stressed it will become charged. The part of a bone that is compressed will become negatively charged, while the part of the same bone that is under tension will become positively charged. Robert M. Hunt 16:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Bones conduct electricity better than the surrounding tissues. This causes problems if a person is accidentally electrocuted at high voltage because the current is conducted best through the skeleton. This causes the bones to heat up, which can in turn damage the tissues surrounding them. Thus a limb, which may look normal from the outside, may be permanently lost because of deep tissue damage.Preacherdoc 18:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

How long do bones take to degrade in different environments?
Just curious! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.103.126.84 (talk) 14:44, April 14, 2007 (UTC)
 * Please use this talk page is for discussing improvements to the Bone article, not for general discussion of bones. Thank you.  :-) --  Hi  Ev  17:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * You might try asking your question again at Reference_desk/Science. -- Hi  Ev  17:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * But questions such as this are suggestions for the article improvement. Me, i put a "citation needed" tag in the "Dog" article where it says that you shouldn't feed your dog cooked bones, because their chemistry has been modified and they become more brittle, or smthing to that effect. --Jerome Potts (talk) 03:35, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

synovial and fibrous joints?
Are there two types of joints between the radius and ulna? I was lead to believe they are joined by a fibrous joint. Another article tells me they have a synovial joint to allow supination and pronation. Can anyone clarify please? Kramnahtal 10:01, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe the fibrous joints are between the shafts, and there might be a synovial joint at the wrist and elbow for pronation/supination. You might want to bring this up at the reference desk and come back here with the answer you get.  Or there's always google.  WLU 18:05, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

evolution of bones
Does anyone know how bones evolved (of course for every bone a different story can be told), but I mean bones in general. I read in Gould and Vrba's famous 1982 paper on Exaptation that they suggested bones volved as exaptation of mineral storage (one of the functions still acknowlegded in this article). Can anyone confirm this? Trabecular bone 이란 무엇인가? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thdclgh (talk • contribs) 07:05, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Why is this article solely under the jurisdiction of "medicine"?
This article seems to mostly focus on bones from the point of view of human biology, which is incredibly narrow. Why does it not mention differences or similarities between the kinds of bone found in different vertebrates? And as the above user wrote, it should surely discuss the evolution of bones. Just by way of comparison, the article on eyes gives very broad information, and refers the user to human eye for information specific to humans. From the standpoint of medicine, this article is probably okay. From the standpoint of science, it leaves much to be desired... Kier07 (talk) 07:14, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It's definitely going to be expanded at some point. Problem is, it will hopefully be part of [|Wikiproject Organismal Biomechanics], but as of now, I'm the only person on that project.  I'll get to it, but unless I get help, it could be a long, long while (there are many articles in far, far worse shape - listed on my userpage) Mokele (talk) 12:50, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

science
bones are rigid organs.one of types of tissue that makes up bone in the mieralizied.these are the words that are important organs,endoskeleton,verbrates,white blood cells,osseous tissue,marrow,endosteum,periosteum,nerves,blood vessels,cartilage,bones,infant,and those are the words that are important. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.212.85.40 (talk) 04:01, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Structure vs cellular structure (relationship)?
Information not apparent from the article as it stands, leaving me still in the dark about what I would like to understand from this article (i.e. the cellular makeup of bones)....

Compact bone or (Cortical bone)
Is this composed of osteoblast, osteocytes, osteoclasts, other, or some mix?

Trabecular bone
Is this composed of osteoblast, osteocytes, osteoclasts, other, or some mix?

Cellular Structure

 * Osteoblasts - are these found in compact bone/cortical bone? tabecular bone? What role do they play in one part of the bone or another?
 * Osteocytes - are these found in compact bone/cortical bone? tabecular bone? What role do they play in one part of the bone or another?
 * Osteoclasts - are these found in compact bone/cortical bone? tabecular bone?  What role do they play in one part of the bone or another?

This information would be relevant to the "Formation" section as well, but that section is also very spare at present and I couldn't glean any information about the cellular makeup of bones from there either. As a lay person I was interested in the fundamental question of whether the main structure of bones is made up of cells, or just of calcium and "stuff" given off by cells during formation. I don't currently find much in this article to fundamentally answer that question, only some hints in one direction. 71.111.142.229 (talk) 04:15, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Breast Bone
My sister had surgery today and removed her Breast Bone due to an infection after open heart surgery. I would like to know more about the Breast Bone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.130.124.38 (talk) 19:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

It's more properly called the sternum. Mokele (talk) 20:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Does fingers bones have blood or some liquid inside like big bones of legs or arms?
So do hand (say middle) finger bones have some inside space (cilindrical) for kinda blood-liquid like inside big leg bone ? And how many such bones with liquid have human (except head scull). I would think only 4, two of legs and two of arms. How it is realy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.59.24.214 (talk) 08:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * All human bones have fluid inside of them, but not all have marrow. Finger bones lack marrow, but definitely contain fluid. Mokele (talk) 22:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Symbolism/role in religion/iconography??
There should definitely be a section in this article about the role of bones in religious rites, and bones in mythology, iconography, etc. and the most commonly accepted meaning of bone as a symbol (as in water=life, fire=passion/hell, etc.)

Formula for hydroxylapatite wrong
In the section Inorganic within Matrix, the chemical formula for hydroxylapatite was given as "Ca10(PO4)6OH2", which I concluded to be a mistake. I took the liberty to change it to "Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2" without consulting the collective authority of the community accessed by the discussion page. If I just committed a wikipedestrian felony, shoot me in my third eye and redo what I redid. ~ Thγmφ (talk) 16:33, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Dubious external link
It might be questioned whether this is a quality external link. It feels pretty SEO-spammy. As of this writing, that link is still in the article. 31.16.124.131 (talk) 00:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Removed. Materialscientist (talk) 00:28, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Embryonic development needed be added to Bone or Bone_development
I propose that it will be added to Bone_development and the relink from Bone_development to Bone will be removed.

No discussion has been given on embryonal development so far i.e. about from which layer: ecto-, meso- or endoderm is bone going to be formed.

TODO — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.233.241.12 (talk) 00:31, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

homo-centric
After a fairly general introduction, this articles descends rather badly into a treatise on human bones, ignoring the rest of the vertebrates. Nothing on lightweight bones in birds? Also some of the images are awful, jpgs with embedded text. I guess this is just a complaint, rather than an offer to help :( Huw Powell (talk) 04:52, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I've been meaning to fix that, but it's not particularly high on an extremely long to-do list, so please, go ahead, I'll help however I can. HCA (talk) 15:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Physical properties
I noticed that there is all kinds of info on the cell structures, and compounds within bone, but no properties describing the density, the tensile/compressive strength, dimensions or other physical properties. -- T HE F OUNDERS I NTENT  PRAISE 17:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)


 * You mean aside from the section called "Mechanical Properties"? HCA (talk) 03:17, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Composition of Bone
Dear Wikipedia, Something's not right here. The human body is 1.4% calcium by weight [1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body) and bones make up 12 to 15 percent of the human body by weight [2] (lower estimate, multiple sources), and they are "formed mostly of calcium phosphate in the chemical arrangement termed calcium hydroxylapatite" [3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone), up to 50% of bone weight [4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxylapatite). If you assume that every calcium atom in the body is in bones 9not likely) and take calcium to be roughly 40% of hydroxylapatite (Ca5(PO4)3(OH)) by weight, then bones are either less than one-third hydroxylapatite by weight on average, <= 0.014/0.12/0.4, or bones make up less than 10% of body weight. Based on this, I would believe bones are probably composed mainly of collagen (>40%), so statement [3] should be changed. But if not, which of these other statements are incorrect? As it stands now it makes no sense to me, hydroxylapatite may compose up to 50% of some bones or bone parts, but the average must be much lower. And while we're discussing this, why not provide an estimate for the weight percentage of bone in the human body on one of the wikipedia pages. 68.147.53.11 (talk) 20:59, 29 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Bone is about 50/50 mineral/collagen, but there are other things too - water, cellular material, cartilage at the ends, the marrow inside, blood vessels permeating bones, fat (yes, plenty of fat in bones; that's why freshly extracted, raw bones are yellow and, if not degreased, will ooze foul-smelling yellow fat). I suspect the 12-15% is wet-weight of freshly extracted bones - I know from skeleton preps that bones get lighter and lighter as I take steps to strip away all the extraneous "stuff" to leave just the mineral and collagen.


 * Still, you're right about the phrase "formed mostly of calcium phosphate" as vague and misleading, and I'll alter it. HCA (talk) 14:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that helps a bunch. It seems within the 12-15%, one-third is marrow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_marrow). Subtracting all the marrow, fat and water, and taking 96.5% of the body's calcium to be in bones (to balance the Ca/Mg ratio in the rest of the body), I have calculated that dry bone tissue makes up about 7% of the human body by weight and is comprised of about 50% hydroxylapatite, 40% collagen, 6% carbonate, 1% citrate, 1% osteoproteins(o-lactin,o-nectin,o-pontin,o-protegerin), 1% proteoglycans and 1% minerals(Na,K,Mg,Ca,Mn,Fe,Cu,Zn,Cl,I) by weight. On the other hand, the bulk chemical composition of living bone tissue, marrow and all, I've estimated as follows: 27% water, 26% hydroxylapatite, 21% collagen, 10% triglycerides, 6% hemoglobin, 3% carbonate, 3% cholesterol; citrate, minerals, osteoproteins, proteoglycans, phospholipids and nucleic acids (0.5% each); 0.2% adipoproteins(a-nectin,resistin,leptin,apelin), 0.05% anion exchanger protein, 0.05% other proteins and 0.01% glucose That is by weight of course, does anything there seem out of whack? 68.147.53.11 (talk) 22:23, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

What is the role of Matrix gla Protein?
The Matrix gla protein article says that MGP "may participate in the organisation of bone tissue". Can someone add more about the role of MGP in bone to this article? Encyclopedant (talk) 03:03, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Explanation of some changes
Have made some changes:
 * Reinstated the 'composition' heading. The 'Layered' section goes from out to in, whereas 'composition' covers the nature of the tissue.
 * Renamed tumours to 'cancer'. To me at least, the word 'tumour' implies a swelling (OED: ), whereas I am referring to different disease processes and also examples of cancers that affect bone marrow.

Cheers! --Tom (LT) (talk) 05:46, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Comparative aspects
I notice that much of what has been written is actually about human bone. Some of that is true for a much greater range of taxa, but other parts are specific to humans, or appear to be. I will try to clarify that, to the extent that I can, and add some comparative material, which is currently almost non-existent on that page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michel Laurin (talk • contribs) 20:34, 18 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Please, feel free to add as much as possible; many anatomical articles here are hugely anthropocentric. HCA (talk) 16:18, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Bone tissue

 * Much of page is duplicated on target page. Difficult to know what to include on this page or leave on target page particularly Clinical significance items. Individual bone cells would still have their own pages. A merge would not create a very large article. Iztwoz (talk) 17:25, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It does look like it might not need to be an article on its own. I support a merge. However, it may be difficult to incorporate the text in a coherent way. Andrew. Z. Colvin  •  Talk  07:09, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Support - Most of the headings at bone tissue are reproduced to a marginally lesser extent at bone. PriceDL (talk) 17:33, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

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Text misaligned under 'Types' sub-title in the article due to the size of the picture
In my opinion, the image of the skeleton under the 'Types' sub-heading in the article should be made smaller due to the image spoiling the alignment of the text. If left unchanged, I fear that the misaligned text may make the article look unprofessional. Xboxsponge15 (talk) 16:18, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Structure
The shown image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bone_cross-section.svg#file contains an error. Therefore I removed it and added this comment to the picture peer review of the image. While beautifully made the image incorrectly shows an articular surface on the major trochanter. As the major trochanter is not part of any joint, it does not have an articular surface but is instead the attachment site of the gluteus medius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluteus_medius. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Annika.v.S. (talk • contribs) 13:41, 3 December 2020 (UTC)