Is Hyperglycemia Linked to an Increased Risk of Bone Fracture?

Patients with diabetes who fail to maintain normal glucose levels are at a greater risk for bone fractures, according to a recent study.

“Bone fractures can be life threatening: nearly 1 in 6 hip fracture patients die within one year. Because physical exercise is proven to improve bone properties and reduce fracture risk in non-diabetic subjects, we tested its efficacy in type 1 diabetes,” explained the study’s authors.
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For the study, researchers exposed a mouse model of diabetes to exercise that promoted bone formation, comparing the results with non-diabetic mice.

“We suspected that the response of diabetic bone to mechanical loading would be compromised due to impaired mechanosensing of osteocytes under hyperglycemic, or high blood sugar, conditions,” they wrote.

Overall, researchers found that the positive effects of exercise on bone health were “nearly abolished” in severely diabetic mice, and that hyperglycemia reduced the sensitivity of bone cells to stimulation and repressed their ability to promote stronger bone growth.

“Our work demonstrates that diabetic bone can respond to exercise when the hyperglycemia is not severe, which suggests that mechanical interventions may be useful to improve bone health and reduce fracture risk in mildly affected diabetic patients,” they concluded.

“Coming at it from the other side, our results stress the importance of maintaining good control of blood sugar in diabetic patients so that exercise can do its work in maintaining bone health.”

The complete study published in the August issue of Bone.

-Michelle Canales Butcher

Reference:

Parajuli, Liu C, Li Wen, et al. Bone’s responses to mechanical loading are impaired in type 1 diabetes. Bone. 2015 August [epub ahead of print] doi: dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bone.2015.07.012.