| Vivian S . van Heekeren |
Discussion
It is known that osteoporosis correlates with an increasing age . Therefore , the two affected age categories , 36-45 years and the ≥46 years and older , have been studied for both periods . Unfortunately , the data does not provide enough results for the Medieval period to calculate the expected frequency for the Chi-squared method . The relationship between these two categories for the post-Medieval
( P-value = < 0.0001 , χ 2 = 37.318 , 1df ). Effectively , this means that with the increase of age there is an increasing chance to develop osteoporosis as well .
advances in science and technology resulted in the Industrial Revolution . The changes brought about by this had a dramatic effect on environment , lifestyle , and diet . As many of these changes would favour the development of osteoporosis , this study aimed to see whether there was a general increase in the prevalence of osteoporosis from the Medieval to the post-Medieval period . The results demonstrate that the crude prevalence rate of individuals affected by osteoporosis increases from 0.07 % for the Medieval period to 1.08 % for the post-Medieval period , a
the rise of the overall percentage .
It is known from clinical research that elderly females are systematically more affected by osteoporosis than males and younger individuals .
with the statistical results for females and older adults that suffer from osteoporosis . In addition ,
prevalence of osteoporosis during the Industrial
for the post-Medieval period with the increase of individuals with the disease in general . However , the problem with the older adult category is that this is a very large category wherein no distinction can be made between individuals in their forties or nineties . It might be possible that more individuals reached this age during the post-Medieval period or became older in general , which could have led to an increase in osteoporosis during this period .
It is questionable whether the osteoporosis CPR composed by Roberts and Cox ( 2003 ) for the post- Medieval period in Great Britain is representative for other cemeteries . This current study presents more results from multiple sites in London and shows the opposite trend . Nevertheless , care should still be taken when comparing these results to cemetaries from elsewhere in Britain , since the industrialisation was far more extensive in London than it was in smaller cities or rural areas .
While this paper tries to limit the impact of interobserver error by using data collected by the same institution , it is of course possible that some differences may still be a product of different data collectors or by when they were researched . The Medieval cemeteries discussed in this research were excavated between 1984 and 1998 , while more than half of the post-Medieval ones were excavated in the 21 st century ( Van Heekeren 2015 , 60 ). The WHO
is likely that the increase in osteoporosis cases in
detect osteoporosis in archaeological human remains ( Waldron 2009 , 120 ). An example of improved detection of osteoporosis in archaeological human remains are the results from the St Brides Lower Cemetery . This site was used for composing the CPR found in Roberts and Cox ( 2003 ) and eight individuals were affected with osteoporosis in the original study from Molleson and Cox in 1993 ( Roberts and Cox 2003 , 355 ). The population of this cemetery has been re-examined by Brickley ( 1997 ) using modern techniques and this resulted in 31 individuals with skeletal changes conforming to osteoporosis ( WORD database , 2015b ). The advances of science and the use of medical technology , which is recently also more frequently used in osteoarchaeology , allow for better detection of osteoporosis and will most likely result in an increased detection of affected individuals in the future .
Despite the availability of improved detection techniques , osteoarchaeologists still struggle
determine when an individual was affected by this disease or not . This is also visible within the MOLA database where osteoporosis sometimes was recorded as a pathology , although based on different characteristics . The diagnosis could be based on the bones feeling lightweight and the age and sex of the individual , while on other occasions an individual should at least have one osteoporotic fracture ( WORD database , 2015 ). Waldron ( 2009 ) argues that the true prevalence of osteoporosis will be underestimated in past populations when researchers only count the individuals with an osteoporotic fracture . However , counting osteoporotic fractures is the only way to p . 34 | VOL III | INTER-SECTION | 2017