IMR Press / FBL / Volume 19 / Issue 7 / DOI: 10.2741/4273

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Article
Fracture healing: from basic science to role of nutrition
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1 Dept. of Clinical Sciences and Translational Medicine, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Italy
2 Dept. of Experimental Medicine, University of Rome “Sapienza”, Italy
3 Dept. of Clinical and Molecular Biomedicine, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2014, 19(7), 1162–1175; https://doi.org/10.2741/4273
Published: 1 June 2014
Abstract

Fracture healing is a complex event that involves the coordination of different processes: initial inflammatory response, soft and hard callus formation, initial bony union and bone remodeling. This well-orchestrated series of biological events follows a specific temporal and spatial sequence that can be affected by biological factors, such as age and bone quality. There is some evidence that increased age is a considerable factor in the inhibition of fracture repair in human subjects. During aging there is an accumulation of damage that depends on the activation of inflammation processes and on changes in the circulating levels of inflammatory cytokines. In addition to the physiological slow down in the repair process, other conditions such as multiple comorbidities leading to polymedication are a frequent occurrence in elderly patients and can have an influence on this process. A further factor that affects bone metabolism is nutrition: bone quality, fragility fractures risk and fracture healing process are all influenced by the nutritional status. This review provides a summary of the immunological aspects of physiological fracture healing and of those nutritional factors which might play an important role in this process.

Keywords
Inflammation
Osteoporosis
Fracture Healing
Nutritional Factors
Review
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