A new study found that examining the bones of younger women with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry may help reduce fractures. The findings were published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.
Osteoporosis causes over 8.9 million fractures worldwide per year, according the International Osteoporosis Foundation. That equates to a fracture every three seconds.
Currently, bone fragility is treated after individuals have lost a significant amount of bone mass and strength. Researchers at the University of Michigan set out to discover if they can identify women with bone fragility before a fracture occurs.
For the study, they enrolled 198 women between 42 and 52 years of age with an intact uterus and who had at least one menstrual period in the previous three months. The participants also had about 14 annual study visits, which include bone density scans of their hip and spine.
Over a 14-year period, the research team evaluated DEXA images that measured bone mineral density of the hip. They were trying to determine if any changes were occurring in each woman.
They uncovered that women experienced different changes in bone mineral content and bone area within the hip, but similar changes in areal bone mineral density.
Additionally, women with narrow femoral necks had smaller changes in bone mineral content but greater increases in bone area compared to women with wide femoral necks.
Those weren't the findings that the researchers expected. Based on previous research, they thought that bone expansion mechanically offsets bone loss but they found that some women had hip bones that strengthened during menopause and others got weaker.
“This study demonstrated for the first time that we can track bone changes happening individually in women during menopause,” Karl Jepsen, associate chair of research and professor at Michigan Medicine, said in a statement.
He hopes that these results will encourage additional research, so that simple bone traits can one day be used to identify women who may benefit from early intervention.
“Current identification for bone fragility takes place when the patient is around 65 years of age,” Jepsen explained. “We were hopeful that this study would give us an opportunity to identify those patients as early as 30 years before they fracture, based on their bone traits.
