Prevention of Osteoporosis by Physical Signals: Defining a Potential Role for Nondrug Strategies in the Treatment of Musculoskeletal Injury and Disease

Stephen Jay Gould's commentary on Darwinism emphasizes the vital importance of an organism's ability to adapt effectively to changing signals arising from the environment. Pressure, gravity, waves, temperature, light, electric, and magnetic fields make up an omnipresent physical presence since the beginning of time. It should be no surprise, therefore, that the capacity of biologic systems to adapt to physical signals is a common attribute for essentially all life, including bacteria, yeast, plant, and animal cells, and that the cellular machinery responsible for sensing and responding to mechanical signals evolved during billions of years of exposure to a range of physical challenges. The evolutionary success of any organism has always been based on its ability to accommodate, acclimate, and adapt to changes in its immediate temporal and spatial environment. It should not be difficult to recognize that the primacy of vertebrates through the past 500 million years has been achieved through highly orchestrated adaptation to physical signals. Thus, if physical signals could be harnessed to prevent or reverse the age-, injury-, or disease-related deterioration of the musculoskeletal system, it would diminish dependence on pharmacologic agents prescribed for these goals.