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(*) Summary. Osteoporosis occurs in all populations and has significant physical, psychosocial, and financial consequences. While it is often thought of as an older person's disease, it can strike at any age. It is one of the most debilitating diseases particularly in postmenopausal women, but there are many diseases that can cause this condition, e.g. hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, hyperparathyroidism, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, hypogonadism, to mention just a few. Osteoporosis may be characterized by low bone mineral density (BMD). Our purpose will be to discuss our model to human BMD estimated through bone densitometry (i.e. dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry), using local volumetric distance spline interpolants. Interpolating the values means the construction of a function F(x,y,z) that mimics the relationship implied by the data (xi,yi,zi;fi), in such a way that F(xi,yi,zi) = fi, i=1,2,...,n, where x,y and z represent, respectively, age, weight and height. This strategy greatly enhances the ability to accurately express the patient’s bone density measurements, with the potential to become a framework for bone densitometry in clinical practice. The usefulness of our model will be demonstrated in 424 patients. The relevance of our results for diagnosing and preventing osteoporosis will be discussed.

(**) Biodata. Dr. Rita Cassia-Moura was born in Brazil and obtained her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences. She has a permanent post as Professor of Biophysics of the Pernambuco University, Brazil (since 1991), and she is associated with the Secretariat of Health of the State of Pernambuco as a Consultant to a State Medical Laboratory (since 1990). She was Junior Associate of the ICTP (from 1997 to 2000), and since 2004 she has been a Regular Associate. Her present field is Biophysics and Neurophysics, and her main research interest is biological modeling of both osteoporosis and memory processes.