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This document was received by the Digital Commons on May 5, 2008 and posted on May 13,2008. Original document was submitted as an honors thesis requirement. Copyright is held by the author.

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Article

Abstract

The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether or not lactose intolerance has an effect on the development of osteoporosis. I hypothesized that lactose intolerance would not increase a person's risk of osteoporosis. In order to test this hypothesis, a sample group of 300 people was generated. All of these people were of generally good health and between the ages of 40-50. They were separated into three subgroups based on severity of lactose intolerance by means of a hydrogen breath test: non-lactose intolerant, moderately lactose intolerant, and severely lactose intolerant. Each individual was then administered a BMD (bone mineral density) scan of the vertebral and femoral regions. The results of this experiment showed that the difference in BMD between all individuals tested was too small to be considered significant. Thus, it was determined that lactose intolerance has no noticeable effect on whether or not a person will develop osteoporosis.

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