Several studies suggest that the yield strain in cancellous bone may be uniformly distributed and isotropic. Yield strain was reported to be independent of textural anisotropy in bovine cancellous bone [Turner, J. biomech. Engng 111, 1–5 (1989)] and it is plausible that yield strain is isotropic in human cancellous bone as well. In this paper, it is hypothesized that uniform, isotropic strain represents a goal of cancellous bone adaptation, i.e. cancellous bone alters its structure to maintain uniform, isotropic peak strains. Therefore, textural anisotropy must exactly cancel the anisotropy of the peak principal stresses imposed upon cancellous bone. When evaluating the relationships between mechanical properties of cancellous bone and trabecular architecture, it was found that over 90% of the variance of yield strength can be explained by one term— ρ²H³ (where ρ is apparent density and H is the normalized anisotropy (fabric) constant). Furthermore, this single term explains 70–78% of the variance in Young's modulus of cancellous bone.

Based upon these findings, it was postulated that fabric adaptation goes as H_i/H_j=|σ_i/σ_j|^1/3, where H_i and H_j are fabric eigenvalues in the i- and the j-direction and σ_i and σ_j are peak principal stresses.