The influence of hormonal status and features of the metabolic syndrome on bone density: a population-based study of Swedish women aged 50 to 59 years. The women's health in the Lund area study

Abstract

This study investigated whether there is an association between bone density and features of the metabolic syndrome in relation to hormonal status. All women aged 50 to 59 years living in a defined geographic area in Sweden were offered a health assessment program including blood glucose, lipid profile, blood pressure, and bone densitometry. Women were divided into 3 groups according to their hormonal status: premenopausal (PM), postmenopausal with hormone replacement therapy (PMT), and postmenopausal without hormone replacement therapy (PM0). Of the 6,886 women investigated, 7% were PM, 41% PMT, and 52% PM0. The overall prevalence of osteopenia and osteoporosis, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) definition, was 42.6% and 6.6%, respectively. T-score in the PM group was higher than in the PMT (P <.05) and PM0 groups (P <.001) and higher in the PMT group compared with the PM0 group (P <.001). Also, in the total cohort, the bone density was positively associated with body weight, body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), serum triglycerides, and blood glucose (P <.001 for all) and negatively associated with serum levels of cholesterol (P <.05) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) (P <.001). This was most evident among the PMO women, suggesting that the influence of metabolic factors on bone density increases when the levels of hormones decrease. This indicates that hormone replacement therapy maintains treated women in a premenopausal status concerning the metabolic factors.