The Relationship between Waist‐to‐Height Ratio and Femoral Neck Bone Mineral Density in Men and Women

Abstract

In the United States, adults over the age of 45 years old represent about 40% of the population. Over half of this population is afflicted with one or more chronic health conditions, among which cardiometabolic dysregulation and decreased bone mineral density (BMD) are two of the highest in prevalence. Trabecular bone, as found in the femoral neck, is regulated via metabolic activity in the human body. Therefore, age‐related bone loss, at sites such as femoral neck may lead to complications such as fracture. However, there is a conflict of existing data regarding the nature of how cardiometabolic risk factors are related to BMD. High body mass index is one of the cardiometabolic risk factors that has been shown to have a positive correlation with total BMD; however, other metabolic factors have been identified to be inversely correlated with BMD. For example, high waist‐to‐height ratio (WHtR), which is a strong indication of cardiometabolic risk, has been implicated as having an inverse relationship with BMD. On the contrary, some studies suggest that as the number of cardiometabolic risk factors increases, so does BMD. Thus, the purpose of this cross‐sectional study was to investigate the extent to which WHtR may have a relationship with femoral neck BMD in an aging population. For this purpose, forty‐eight men and women (age 45 to 65 years old) were assessed for their baseline right and left femoral neck BMD measurements. Duel‐energy x‐ray absorptiometry was used to determine participants’ femoral neck BMD. For the statistical analysis, SPSS bivariate two‐tailed correlation and linear regression was used to compare the data. Results from this study showed a significant (P <0.05) positive correlation between WHtR and femoral neck BMD. Therefore, the findings of this study suggest that WHtR is positively correlated with femoral neck BMD; however, these findings are limited and more research is needed to determine how visceral fat is causally associated with BMD.