Biomedical Engineering Letters

, Volume 5, Issue 2, pp 73–78 | Cite as

Enhancement of bone quality and longitudinal growth due to free-fall motion in growing rats

  • Seungkwan Cho
  • Sinae Eom
  • Dong-Hyun Seo
  • Jihyeong Park
  • Chang-Yong Ko
  • Han Sung Kim
Original Article
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:
Part of the following topical collections:
  1. Biomechanics

Abstract

Objectives

This study is to investigate the synchronous phenomena between bone quality and longitudinal length in a same subject affected by landing exercise. Physical exercise on the ground induces external loading to human body due to resistance from ground which can activate bone generation or remodeling. Especially, when the impact stimulation is applied to bone, it may improve bone quality and lengthening.

Methods

6-week-old male Wistar rats were randomly allocated to one of two conditions: free fall from 40 cm-height (I40; n = 7), and control (IC; n = 7). The impact stimulations were administered to the free fall groups, 10 times/day, and 5 days/week for 8 weeks. Structural parameters and longitudinal length of tibia were measured to quantitatively evaluate the variation in morphological characteristics and bone length with maturing.

Results

The landing impact seems to be commonly effective on the enhancement of bone quality as well as longitudinal growth. However, the extent of enhancement may be more dominant in bone quality than longitudinal growth. On the other hand, the ratio of longitudinal growth seems to be dependent on the duration of stimuli whereas the enhancement of bone quality does not.

Conclusions

This study verified that free-falls exercise can be effective on the enhancement of bone qualities and promotion of vertical growth in long bones. We expect that it might be possible for the moderate impact stimulation to be proposed as an aid for prevention of bone loss and promotion of bone lengthening.

Keywords

Bone quality Longitudinal length Free-fall motion Bone adaptation Growing rat Micro-computer tomography (micro-CT) 
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Copyright information

© Korean Society of Medical and Biological Engineering and Springer 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  • Seungkwan Cho
    • 1
    • 2
  • Sinae Eom
    • 1
  • Dong-Hyun Seo
    • 1
    • 2
  • Jihyeong Park
    • 1
    • 2
  • Chang-Yong Ko
    • 3
  • Han Sung Kim
    • 1
    • 2
  1. 1.Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Health ScienceYonsei UniversityWonju, GangwonKorea
  2. 2.Yonsei-Fraunhofer Medical Device Lab.Wonju, GangwonKorea
  3. 3.Korea Orthopedics & Rehabilitation Engineering CenterIncheonKorea

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