Information on Loughborough

Female athletes needed for bone health study

Posted on 29/12/2008

Loughborough University Website

Female athletes needed for bone health study

New research by Loughborough University and the English Institute of Sport is hoping to discover why endurance athletes are more susceptible to stress fractures.

 

Although athletes are extremely fit they are more likely to sustain injuries, with stress fractures being amongst the most common. These types of fractures typically occur in weight-bearing bones, such as the tibia/fibula (bones of the lower leg) and metatarsals (bones of the foot). As many as one in five athletes in some sports can be affected by such injuries each year.

The study, being led by Dr Katherine Brooke-Wavell and Rachel Duckham from the University’s Department of Human Sciences and Dr Nick Peirce from the English Institute of Sport East Midlands, is focussing on female athletes. They are looking for female endurance runners and triathletes of a high athletic standard aged between 18 and 45 to take part in the research. Volunteers would have to attend three one-hour visits to the University over a 12 month period, where they would fill out questionnaires and undergo bone scans and muscle function tests.