# BCCMA: Foundational Research to Act Upon and Resist Conditions Unfavorable to Bone (FRACTURE CURB): Role of Hypertension in Favoring Osteoporosis

> **NIH VA I01** · VETERANS HEALTH ADMINISTRATION · 2024 · —

## Abstract

To ensure aging Veterans remain active and mobile with as little musculoskeletal pain as possible, new
approaches to the prevention of osteoporosis and promotion of timely bone regeneration following a fracture are
necessary. This collaborative research study brings together a group of VA investigators with diverse
perspectives, insights, models, and techniques, to synergistically attack a major clinical problem that leads to
high morbidity and mortality among Veterans, a bone fracture. The overall research strategy of each integrated
project is to use pre-clinical models of a disease that either weakens bone or delays bone repair, to investigate
novel ways to enhance the ability of parathyroid hormone (PTH) to promote bone formation, and to assess
disease and treatment effects on bone in a unified, stringent manner. Already under-diagnosed and under-
treated, osteoporosis is likely to increase the number of fragility fractures being treated at VA hospitals without
novel tools for early detection and novel treatment strategies that circumvent the rare but devastating side effects
of current therapies that inhibit bone loss. Addressing this unmet clinical need, the overall aims are to identify
therapeutic strategies to improve bone health among Veterans and to enhance the bone anabolism of PTH
signaling. The collaboration will address this overarching hypothesis: health problems disproportionately
affecting Veterans activate signaling pathways that increase bone resorption, suppress bone formation, or
impede the transition of cartilage to bone in a fracture callus such that improvements in the clinical management
of osteoporosis lie in understanding how these health problems hurt bone health. This project recognizes that
hypertension and osteoporosis often develop together as patients grow older beyond 50 years of age and that
female and male Veterans are susceptible to both chronic diseases. Based on our preliminary studies of what
happens to bone in standard pre-clinical mouse models of hypertension, we will investigate a mechanism by
which hypertension weakens bone with the ultimate goal of identifying a new therapeutic strategy in the
prevention of osteoporosis. Specifically, the first aim of the project will be to test the hypothesis that sex steroids,
namely estrogen and testosterone, influence the decline in bone mass and bone quality that occurs with the
onset of hypertension. Achieving this goal involves assessing the relative effect of estrogen deficiency (or
testosterone deficiency) and hypertension on the fracture resistance of mouse bone. Furthermore, by
investigating treatment and surgery effects on gene and protein expression in bone and bone marrow, on
markers of bone resorption and bone formation, and on the number and activity of bone cells, the project will
provide insight into how rising blood pressure and rising sympathetic tone negatively affects bone. In the second
aim, we will ascertain whether an inflammatory factor known ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10721344
- **Project number:** 5I01BX005866-02
- **Recipient organization:** VETERANS HEALTH ADMINISTRATION
- **Principal Investigator:** Jeffry Stephen Nyman
- **Activity code:** I01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-10-01 → 2026-09-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10721344

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10721344, BCCMA: Foundational Research to Act Upon and Resist Conditions Unfavorable to Bone (FRACTURE CURB): Role of Hypertension in Favoring Osteoporosis (5I01BX005866-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10721344. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*