Abstract
Small vertebral size increases the risk of osteoporotic vertebral fractures. Obese individuals have larger vertebral size and potentially lower fracture risk than lean individuals, but scarce data exist on the association between vertebral size and anthropometric measures beyond height, weight, and body mass index (BMI). Here, we evaluated several anthropometric measures (height, weight, BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference, waist-to-hip ratio [WHR], waist-to-height ratio [WHtR], fat mass [FM], lean body mass [LBM], percentage FM [%FM], percentage LBM [%LBM]) as predictors of vertebral cross-sectional area (CSA). We used a representative sample from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 (n = 1087), with anthropometric measurements from the ages of 31 and 46, bioimpedance analysis from the age of 46, and lumbar magnetic resonance imaging from the age of 46 years. In our data, height and LBM correlated most strongly with vertebral CSA among both sexes (0.469 ≤ r ≤ 0.514), while WHR, WHtR, %FM, and %LBM had the weakest correlations with vertebral CSA (|r| ≤ 0.114). We conclude that height and LBM have the highest, yet only moderate correlations with vertebral size. High absolute LBM, rather than FM or abdominal mass accumulation, correlates with large vertebral size and thus potentially also with lower osteoporotic vertebral fracture risk.
Highlights
Weight is associated with bone size at load-bearing skeletal sites[13] and the dimensions of several bony elements from the axial and appendicular skeleton have been used to estimate height and weight to varying accuracies[14,15]
Mass accumulation around the waist, hip, and abdomen are reflected by several anthropometric measurements, of which waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) are among the most widely used in clinical practice[18,19,20,21]
Anthropometric measurements were objectively measured at the age of 31 and at the age of 46, body composition parameters were obtained by bioimpedance analysis at the age of 46, and vertebral cross-sectional area (CSA) was derived from lumbar magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans at the age of 46
Summary
Weight is associated with bone size at load-bearing skeletal sites[13] and the dimensions of several bony elements from the axial and appendicular skeleton have been used to estimate height and weight to varying accuracies[14,15]. Previous studies have described positive associations between height, weight, body mass index (BMI, i.e. weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters) and vertebral size[5,6,17]. Data describing the association of vertebral size with anthropometric measures beyond height, weight, and BMI are scarce. Anthropometric measurements were objectively measured at the age of 31 (when peak bone mass had been newly reached23) and at the age of 46 (after which the incidence of osteoporotic vertebral fractures was known to increase24,25), body composition parameters were obtained by bioimpedance analysis at the age of 46, and vertebral CSA was derived from lumbar magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans at the age of 46
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