Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 01/03/2011 17:46:48
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Why is it that a healed break or fracture can be said to be stronger than before it was broken?
Asked by @ItsShaun
Go to the show page. (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/show/2011.02.27/)
[chapter podcast=3023 track=11.02.27/Naked_Scientists_Show_11.02.27_7993.mp3](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedscientists.com%2FHTML%2Ftypo3conf%2Fext%2Fnaksci_podcast%2Fgnome-settings-sound.gif&hash=f2b0d108dc173aeaa367f8db2e2171bd) or Listen to the Answer[/chapter] or [download as MP3] (http://nakeddiscovery.com/downloads/split_individual/11.02.27/Naked_Scientists_Show_11.02.27_7993.mp3)
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We put this to Professor Tim Skerry and Dr Ken Poole...
Tim - Well yes, actually. As bones heal, a sort of cuff of new bone forms around the fracture. So when that's healed and stuck together, the clinical union, which is a few weeks after it’s broken, there’s actually a big thick load of bone where the fracture was, so that would be stronger than the original bone. But over time, that thick piece will remodel away. It will be resorbed away by those osteoclasts that Ken was talking about. If you have a fracture as a child, you'll find that within a couple of years, you wouldn’t be able to tell that the bone had ever been fractured. So eventually, the strength will go back to what it was.
Chris - Do you see this on scan, Ken?
Ken - Can we see it on a scan? Yeah, it’s not one of the bones that we normally see with our DEXA scans which are normally, hip and spine. If there are forearm scans, we’d normally do the one that wasn’t broken because we ask that question before people go in.