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UMass Lowell Professor uncovers gaps in bone health research

Professor Sabrina Noel is an assistant professor of nutrition who is conducting osteoporosis research with the Department of Biomedical and Nutritional Sciences at UMass Lowell (courtesy of Adrien Bisson)

Sohini Nath
Connector Contributor 

In a new review publication in the journal of Bone and Mineral Research, UMass Lowell assistant professor Dr. Sabrina Noel has discovered large gaps in bone health research. Dr. Noel discovered that not enough research is done on minorities, such as Hispanic and African American women.

In her article titled “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Bone Health and Outcomes in the United States”, Dr. Noel concludes that more studies of diverse groups are needed to get a better understanding of the disease osteoporosis.

In the abstract for the text, Noel writes, “Osteoporosis has long been viewed as a chronic health condition affecting primarily non-Hispanic White (NHW) women, however, emerging evidence indicates racial and ethnic disparities in bone outcomes and osteoporosis management.”

The human body is always creating and destroying bone tissue. Osteoporosis is a bone disease that occurs when your bones become weak or brittle. This is caused by your body not properly creating bone tissue, either creating too much tissue or not creating enough. This can cause severe pain and a person’s health could be in danger because the smallest movements can break a bone on ones body and cause potentially fatal injuries such as hip fractures.

There is a widespread belief that osteoporosis mainly affects white women. But, Noel discovered that there has never been enough thorough research on minorities’ and men’s bone health to properly understand that it can happen in equal or near equal amounts to minorities and men as well.

“There are many gaps in the field that we need to address. We are not telling the full story because there is a lot that we just don’t know,” Noel said.

In 2015, Noel was funded by an award given by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (the K01 Research Scientist Development Award) to research bone health. Under this grant, as well as additional funding, Noel conducted research with her fellow UMass Lowell faculty in the Department of Biomedical and Nutritional Sciences. This research showed new discrepancies into research of osteoporosis. Dr. Noel has also been helping analyze research from the Boston Puerto Rican Osteoporosis Study. To review research tied to bone health and osteoporosis, Noel collaborated with Nicole C. Wright, an associate professor of public health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She also collaborated with Michelly Santos, the project manager for community research at UMass Lowell’s Center for Population Health. Their review of the research exposed gaps between minorities and genders when it came to bone health.

Under her grant, Noel has also been conducting focus groups on attitudes and beliefs towards osteoporosis in the town of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Many of the participants of the focus groups are of Dominican origin. Noel is also, through her grant, trying to educate the population about osteoporosis, through an educational intervention. The focus groups have revealed that the participants are not sufficiently educated on the effects of osteoporosis.

“Participants also reported that most of their health care appointments focused on managing existing conditions and medications instead of prevention of chronic conditions,” she says.