Vertebral Fracture Risk Not Worsened by Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes does not increase the risk for vertebral fractures in elderly men, according to a recent study.

In their study, the researchers assessed data from the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men study, which enrolled 875 men with type 2 diabetes and 4679 men without diabetes who were age 65 years or older.
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Dual x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) was used to measure lumbar spine areal bone mineral density (aBMD), and computed tomography (QCT) was used to measure volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD).

Overall, there were no differences in the prevalence or incidence of vertebral fractures between men with diabetes and those without diabetes. Additional analyses that adjusted for age, race, body mass index (BMI), clinic site, and aBMD did not show an increased risk in the prevalence or incidence of vertebral-fractures among men with diabetes compared with those without diabetes.

For men with diabetes and without diabetes, higher spine aBMD was associated with lower risk of prevalent vertebral-fracture and lower risk of incident vertebral facture. These results were similar in analyses of vBMD.

“[Type 2 diabetes] was not associated with higher prevalent or incident vertebral-fracture in older men, even after adjustment for BMI and BMD,” the researchers concluded. “Higher spine aBMD and vBMD are associated with lower prevalence and incidence of vertebral fracture in [type 2 diabetes] as well as non-diabetic men.”

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Napoli N, Schwartz AV, Schafer AL, et al; the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (MrOS) Study Research Group. Vertebral Fracture Risk in Diabetic Elderly Men: The MrOS Study [published online September 1, 2017]. J Bone Miner Res. doi:10.1002/jbmr.3287.