Abstract
It has been reported that geographical variation influences bone mineral density (BMD), obesity, and sarcopenia related traits in other countries. However, there is lack of similar studies in the US population. In this study, we compared data from three US study cohorts to evaluate geographical variations of BMD and body composition. BMD, fat mass and lean mass were collected from Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry machine. ANCOVA and Chi-square tests were used to compare the differences between BMDs, obesity and sarcopenia related traits from different regional sites (Omaha, Kansas City and Baton Rouge/New Orleans). Eta-squared was used to measure the effect sizes of these differences. A total of 11,315 Caucasians from our previous three study cohorts were compared. There was no significant geographical difference in BMD for males or females under the criteria of p-values < 0.05 and effect size η2 > 0.01. There were significant geographical differences with medium effect size (p-value < 0.001, 0.01 < η2 < 0.14) for whole body fat mass percentage and index of low muscle mass. For Caucasians in the United States, there is no significant geographical effect found on BMD. The obesity and sarcopenia related traits are significantly different between the three study cohorts.
Highlights
Osteoporosis, obesity, and sarcopenia are three of the most common health issues in the world
After adjusting for age, weight, height, smoking, alcohol usage, and regular physical activity, we found no significant differences among the studies from three geographical regions for HIP-bone mineral density (BMD), FNK-BMD, and SPN-BMD, if we use stringent criteria p-values < 0.05 and η2 > 0.01
Significant geographical differences were found for body composition phenotypes, such as whole body fat mass percentage (WBFP) and ALMI
Summary
Osteoporosis, obesity, and sarcopenia (age-related decrease in skeletal muscle mass) are three of the most common health issues in the world. They are influenced by multiple factors, such as age, genetics, gender, and race, but few studies have focused on the potential contributions of geographical location. Geographical variation is associated with a number of important factors for human health, including differences in latitude, sun exposure time, and diet All these factors are found to be associated with vitamin D level[1,2,3] and vitamin D deficiency will result in osteoporosis and sarcopenia[4,5,6]. To the best of our knowledge, there are no comprehensive studies on geographical variations in ALMI in American Caucasians
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