Manganese in bone

STRAUSE AND SALTMAN Role of Manganese in Bone Metabolism... 

Manganese. The adult human body contains ca 10—20 mg of manganese (124,125), widely distributed throughout the body. The largest Mg " concentration is in the mitochondria of the soft tissues, especially in the Hver, pancreas, and kidneys (124,126). Manganese concentration in bone varies widely with dietary intake (126) (see Table 10). 

The major inorganic ions in bone mineral are calcium, phosphate and carbonate, with lesser amounts of magnesium, sodium, potassum, chloride, and fluoride66). Traces of iron, copper, lead, manganese, tin, aluminum, strontium, and boron have also been detected67). 

Manganese Involved in bone formation and in enzymes involved in amino acid, cholesterol, and carbohydrate metabolism Men 2.3 mg/d Women 1.8 mg/d... 

Our interest in the role of trace elements in bone metabolism developed in a rather bizarre fashion. Ve became interested in the orthopedic problems of a prominent professional basketball player. Bill Walton. Several years ago he was plagued by frequent broken bones, pains in his joints and an inability to heal bone fractures. We hypothesized that he might be deficient in trace elements as a result of his very limited vegetarian diet. In cooperation with his physician, we were able to analyze Walton s serum. We found no detectable manganese (Mn). His serum concentrations of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) were below normal values. Dietary supplementation with trace elements and calcium (Ca) was begun. Over a period of several months his bones healed and he returned to professional basketball (1,2). In cooperation with several other orthopedic physicians, we analyzed serum from other patients with slow bone healing. Several of these patients also had abnormally low Zn, Cu and Mn levels. 

The inadvertent presence of manganese in our samples prevented accurate measurement of the magnesium content of the bone since the... 

Maltose, rhemical structure, 104. Manganese, SOa-SOS in bone, 697 in tnilk, 695... 

Manganese is a normal component of human and animal tissues and fluids. In humans, most tissue concentrations range between 0.1 and 1 pg manganese/g wet weight (Sumino et al. 1975 Tipton and Cook 1963), with the highest levels in the liver, pancreas, and kidney and the lowest levels in bone and fat (see Table 2-3). Manganese levels in the blood, urine, and serum of healthy, unexposed subjects living in the... 

In vivo assays in mice showed that oral doses of manganese sulfate or potassium permanganate caused micronuclei and chromosomal aberrations in bone marrow (Joardar and Sharma 1990). In contrast, oral doses of manganese chloride did not cause chromosomal aberrations in the bone marrow or spermatogonia of rats (Dikshith and Chandra 1978). A list of in vivo study results is given in Table 2-11. 

We all know that certain chemical elements, such as calcium, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and iron, are essential for humans to live. However, many other elements that are present in tiny amounts in the human body are also essential to life. Examples are chromium, cobalt, iodine, manganese, and copper. Chromium assists in the metabolism of sugars, cobalt is present in vitamin B12, iodine is necessary for the proper functioning of the thyroid gland, manganese appears to play a role in maintaining the proper calcium levels in bones, and copper is involved in the production of red blood cells. 

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