Bones &amp; Body Mass: A Correlation Study

This thesis studies the, by the Museum of London Archaeological Services (MoLAS) analyzed and shared, open source osteological database of the Chelsea Old Church cemetery site OCUoo. Based on this data set, the study aims to research whether there is a correlation between obesity associated diseases, such as: osteoarthritis, gout, and diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH), and body mass. In addition, it attempts to research whether there's a sex-based difference that may influence such a correlation. It does so by creating three subsidiary question that are meant to lead to answering the main question. Subsequently, a sample selection according to the criteria required for this study (adult, sex determined, availability of femoral head breadth metric data). This sample selection will be further tailored by implementing the revised Ruff et al. (2012) body mass estimation equation, before it will undergo statistical data analysis with the use of the SPSS statistics program....Show moreThis thesis studies the, by the Museum of London Archaeological Services (MoLAS) analyzed and shared, open source osteological database of the Chelsea Old Church cemetery site OCUoo. Based on this data set, the study aims to research whether there is a correlation between obesity associated diseases, such as: osteoarthritis, gout, and diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH), and body mass. In addition, it attempts to research whether there's a sex-based difference that may influence such a correlation. It does so by creating three subsidiary question that are meant to lead to answering the main question. Subsequently, a sample selection according to the criteria required for this study (adult, sex determined, availability of femoral head breadth metric data). This sample selection will be further tailored by implementing the revised Ruff et al. (2012) body mass estimation equation, before it will undergo statistical data analysis with the use of the SPSS statistics program. The result depicts a data set that's relatively balanced and has a normal distribution. It may be noted that the mean of the body mass (kg) of those with pathological diagnoses lies higher than for those without. As well as that the pathologies follow suit as expected in regard of their prevalence in a certain sex. Osteoarthritis is more common among female individuals while gout and DISH are more common among male individuals. These notions could indicate that there may be a correlation; however, the statistical analyses resulted in the acceptance of the null hypothesis as there's no statistical significance. Therefore, against expectations and contemporary studies, it can be assumed that there's no correlation between obesity-associated diseases and body mass.Show less

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Bones & Body Mass: A Correlation Study