Osteopenia is associated with glycemic levels and blood pressure in Chinese postmenopausal women: a cross-sectional study

The aim of present study was to explore the relationships between osteopenia and dyslipidemia, glycemic levels or blood pressure in postmenopausal Chinese women. A total of 4080 women aged 42–85 years were enrolled in this cross-sectional study, which was nested in an ongoing longitudinal (REACTION) study. Calcaneus quantitative ultrasound (QUS) was performed and QUS T score was calculated to assess bone mineral density. Osteopenia was defined as a T score ≤−1.0. The relationship between osteopenia and dyslipidemia, glycemic levels or blood pressure was investigated. The prevalence of osteopenia was significantly lower in subjects with systolic blood pressure (SBP) ≥140 mmHg, fasting blood glucose (FBG) ≥8.0 mmol/L, postprandial blood glucose (PBG) ≥15.0 mmol/L, hemoglobin A1c (HbA1C) 6.5–7.5 %, HbA1C ≥7.5 %. These relationships remained significant after controlling for multiple factors. Moreover, significant trend between osteopenia and SBP, FBG, PBG and HbA1C was observed in women. In contrast, no significant associations between osteopenia and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) were found, and no significant trend relationship between osteopenia and DBP, TC, TG, HDL-C, LDL-C was found in postmenopausal Chinese women. The present study showed a relationship between SBP, FBG, PBG, HbA1C and osteopenia in postmenopausal Chinese women, while no significant relationship was observed between dyslipidemia, DBP and osteopenia, even after controlling for multiple confounding factors.