3rd BMAS Webinar Series - 9 September 2024
hosted by the BMAS Scientific Board
Clinical implications of BMAT on skeletal health
Annegreet Vlug – Jan van Goyen Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Recent preclinical studies have shown that bone marrow adipose tissue and bone metabolism are connected in multiple ways, first of all through the skeletal stem cell and lineage allocation, but also by lipolysis and energy metabolism and finally by secretion of mediators in paracrine and endocrine ways. At the same time, more and more clinical studies in humans show that the interpretation of the relation between bone marrow adiposity and bone depends on the circumstances as determined by age, sex, skeletal site, body composition, underlying disease and type of intervention. Highlights of the recent insights will be discussed with a focus on osteoporosis and fracture risk and weight loss with anorexia nervosa and bariatric surgery and put into the clinical context to determine the future perspective for bone marrow adiposity as a diagnostic tool and therapeutic target to optimize skeletal health.
SPEAKER
Annegreet Vlug practices as an internist-endocrinologist in the Jan van Goyen Medical Center and OLVG Hospital in Amsterdam with a focus on osteoporosis and bone and calcium disorders. After training in Internal Medicine in Leiden and Amsterdam, she did a clinical fellowship at the Bone Center of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. She received her PhD on the neuroendocrine regulation of human bone metabolism in 2015 from the University of Amsterdam and continued her research during a postdoc on human bone marrow adiposity in the lab of Clifford Rosen in Maine, USA. Currently she is a senior researcher in the Center for Bone Quality in Leiden continuing her research on human bone marrow adiposity, muscle and bone in addition to clinical studies on osteoporosis and menopause. She was elected president of the Dutch Society for Calcium and Bone metabolism in 2023 and serves on multiple other national and international committees from the European Calcified Tissue Society, the European Society for Endocrinology, and the International Bone Marrow Adiposity Society among others and represents the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research as a global ambassador.