Reviewer's report
Title:Quantitative ultrasound measurements and association with physical
activity and dietary calcium intake
Version: 1Date:1 December 2009
Reviewer: Daniel Salica
Reviewer's report:
In general, it is an interesting paper containing important data but, in my opinion,
it needs correction of certain aspects to which I will refer in the following required
answers.
1.Is the question posed by the authors well defined?
In my opinion, in general, it is well defined.
2.Are the methods appropriate and well described?
3. Are the data sound?
About questions 2 and 3, the answers are:
-To back up the criteria used to diagnose osteoporosis.
-To specify how many fractures there are in each of the groups at least in the
premenopausical group and the postmenopausical group.
-To specify whether or not the mentioned fractures were due to bone fragility.
-To indicate, more precisely, how the different groups studied were made up.
-To support the reason why it is stated that also men did the survey out of
curiosity.
-The comparison between premenopausical and postmenopausical groups is not
very relevant because they are two completely different groups:
a) as regards age (in the premenopausical group, women up to 20 years old are
included), b) different estrogenic status, c) different bone status is already
proved.
In my opinion, in order to adequately back up the results, two big groups should
be formed:
a) premenopasical group and b) postmenopausical group. Afterwards, the
comparisons made between the premenopausical group and the
postmenopausical group, as regards physical exercise and calcium intake, is
invalid because each group has different hormonal and bone level, among other
reasons.
4. Does the manuscript adhere to the relevant standards for reporting and data
deposition?
I believe that, in general, it does.
5. Are the discussion and conclusions well balanced and adequately supported
by the data?
Conclusions have not been written in a new paragraph as it is required in
research papers. In the results and the discussion, the two groups
(premenopausical and postmenopausical ones) are compared, which makes the
presentation of the paper worthless.
6. Are limitations of the work clearly stated?
I believe that limitations of the work are not clearly stated, which I explained in
detail in the previous answers.
7. Do the authors clearly acknowledge any work upon which they are building,
both published and unpublished?
On the whole, they do. However, I believe more bibliography should be included
regarding the relationship between physical exercise and bone health. The
reason for this is that bone health does not always mean having more bone but a
better quality of bone.
8. Do the title and abstract accurately convey what has been found?
The title of the paper has not been well stated. In my opinion, it should be:
Association between Quantification of Bone Mass, Measurement by Quantitative
Ultrasound, and Physical Exercise and Calcium Intake.
9. Is the writing acceptable?
In my opinion, according to the observations I made above, the paper could be
reevaluateed to consider its acceptance.
To conclude, in my opinion, it is a good paper and it contains important data
about bone mass quantified by ultrasound, physical exercise, sedentary lifestyle,
calcium intake, alcohol consumption and smoking. With this data, the authors
could obtain good results and conclusions which, unfortunately, have not been
adequately expressed in the paper.