Risk factors for low bone mass: clinical implications

Low-level cadmium exposure and osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a major cause of morbidity worldwide. A number of risk factors, such as age and gender, are well established. High cadmium exposure causes renal damage and in severe cases also causes osteoporosis and osteomalacia. We have examined whether long-term low-level cadmium exposure increases the risk of osteoporosis. Bone mineral density (BMD) in the forearm was measured in 520 men and 544 women, aged 16-81 years, environmentally or occupationally exposed to cadmium, using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) technique. Cadmium in urine was used as the dose estimate and protein HC was used as a marker of renal tubular damage. There was a clear dose-response relation between cadmium dose and the prevalence of tubular proteinuria. Inverse relations were found between cadmium dose, tubular proteinuria, and BMD, particularly apparent in persons over 60 years of age. There was a dose-response relation between cadmium dose and osteoporosis. The odds ratios (ORs) for men were 2.2 (95% CI, 1.0-4.8) in the dose group 0.5-3 nmol Cd/mmol creatinine and 5.3 (2.0-14) in the highest dose category (> or = 3 nmol/mmol creatinine) compared with the lowest dose group (< 0.5 nmol Cd/mmol creatinine). For women, the OR was 1.8 (0.65-5.3) in the dose group 0.5-3 nmol Cd/mmol creatinine. We conclude that exposure to low levels of cadmium is associated with an increased risk of osteoporosis.

Screening for osteopenia and osteoporosis: selection by body composition

There is a great need for simple means of identifying persons at low risk of developing osteoporosis, in order to exclude them from screening with bone mineral measurements, since this procedure is too expensive and time-consuming for general use in the unselected population. We have determined the relationships between body measure (weight, height, body mass index, lean tissue mass, fat mass, waist-to-hip ratio) and bone mineral density (BMD) in 175 women of ages 28-74 years in a cross-sectional study in a county in central Sweden. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry was performed at three sites: total body, L2-4 region of lumbar spine, and neck region of the proximal femur. Using multiple linear regression models, the relationship between the dependent variable, BMD, and each of the body measures was determined, with adjustment for confounding factors. Weight alone, in a multivariate model, explained 28%, 21% and 15% of the variance in BMD of total body, at the lumbar spine and at the femoral neck according to these models. The WHO definition of osteopenia was used to dichotomize BMD, which made it possible, in multivariate logistic regression models, to estimate the risk of osteopenia with different body measures categorized into tertiles. Weight of over 71 kg was associated with a very low risk of being osteopenic compared with women weighing less than 64 kg, with odds ratios (OR) of 0.01 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.00-0.09), 0.06 (CI 0.02-0.22) and 0.13 (CI 0.04-0.42) for osteopenia of total body, lumbar spine and femoral neck, respectively. Furthermore a sensitivity/specificity analysis revealed that, in this population, a woman weighing over 70 kg is not likely to have osteoporosis. Test specifics of a weight under 70 kg for osteoporosis (BMD less than 2.5 SD compared with normal young women) of femoral neck among the postmenopausal women showed a sensitivity of 0.94, a specificity of 0.36, positive predictive value (PPV) of 0.21, and negative predictive value (NPV) of 0.97. Thus, exclusion of the 33% of women with the highest weight meant only that 3% of osteoporotic cases were missed. The corresponding figures for lumbar spine were sensitivity 0.89, specificity 0.38, PPV 0.33, and NPV 0.91. All women who were defined as being osteoporotic of total body weighed under 62 kg. When the intention was to identify those with osteopenia of total body among the postmenopausal women we attained a sensitivity of 0.92 and a NPV of 0.91 for a weight under 70 kg, whereas we found that weight could not be used as an exclusion criterion for osteopenia of femoral neck and lumbar spine. Our data thus indicate that weight could be used to exclude women from a screening program for postmenopausal osteoporosis.