The Relationship between Body Mass Index and Bone Mineral Density in elderly women referred to Quality of Life Control and Health clinic of Khatam-ol-Anbiya Hospital in 2012-2013

Introduction and Osteoporosis and obesity are a major problem that their prevalence is increasing. Obesity is a risk factor for large number of diseases such as, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.Several studies have investigated the association between body mass index (BMI) and bone mineral density (BMD) and indicate, it has protective effect on bone loss however the results are inconsistent. The aim of this study wasevaluation of relationship between Body Mass Index and Bone Mineral Density in Elderly women refers to quality of life control and health clinic of Khatam-ol-Anbiya Hospital in 2012-2013.
This sectional study has been done on 139 elderly women aged 60 and over inquality of life control and health clinic of Khatam-ol- Anbiya Hospital inTehran city, Iran. Demographic data collected by questionnaire. Weight and height were measured. Body massindex (BMI) was calculated and bone mineral density (BMD) was measured by DEXA scan in lumbar spine and femoral bone.
Findings: The study population included 139 elderly women with mean age 70.1 ± 6.2 years old. The mean BMI in these groups was 26.6 ± 0.7 kg/m2. In this study, data analyses of femoral bone and lumbar spine showed that aging related by decrease of BMI and bone mineral content (BMC). BMI has significant positive relationship with BMC (p=0.01) that this relationship was strongest in femoral neck (p=0.001). In overall the strongest relationship of femoral bone and lumbar spine BMC was with BMI ((r=0.292, P=0.005) and (r=0.232, P=0.005)). Also, there was a positive significant association between BMI and mean T-Scorein femur and lumbar spine region ((r=0.492, P=0.01) and (r=0.388, P=0.001)).
These data indicate that BMI is associated with bone mass of femur and vertebrae and obesity decreased the risk for osteoporosis.