Question: Why do African/Caribbean people tend to have heavier bones? Hi i'm Alanna

Max Jamilly answered on 13 Mar 2018:

Hey Alanna! Really interesting question. I didn’t know that this was true but I just found some research papers suggest that, at least among men in the UK, afrocaribbeans do have slightly denser bones. I don’t know why this is! If it’s true for the whole population, it’s more likely to be due to genetics than an environmental factor. Different ethnic groups do have different sets of genes (that’s why they sometimes look different), so it may be that the genes controlling bone density have different versions in afrocaribbeans than the rest of the population. But I don’t know if this is random or whether there’s a reason!

Great question – I’m going to do some more research!