Correlation between bone mineral density and sexual hormones in healthy Chinese women

Osteoporosis is a common disease in women, but not in men. It is usually induced by the deficiency of estrogen after menopause. The lumbar spine is most often affected. We examined 74 healthy Chinese women in whom we measured serum estradiol (E2), estriol (E3), and total testosterone (TTT) by radioimmunoassay (RIA). The bone mineral density (BMD) of the total lumbar spine in the anterior (TLS-A) and lateral (TLS-L) position, the region of interest (ROI) of lateral spine (M-IALS), the forearm, and the total hip (TH) were scanned by a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometer. We found that (1) E2 and all BMD determinations declined significantly after menopause (p < 0.05 for all), except the BMD of TH; (2) the BMD of TLS-L, TH, and forearm correlated significantly with E2 (r = 0.2986, p < 0.05), E3 (r = 0.3380, p < 0.05), and TTT (r = 0.2867, p < 0.05), respectively, by partial correlation analysis. In conclusion, BMD at different sites of the skeleton correlated with the level of different sex hormones. It seems that BMD at different sites of the body is controlled by different sex hormones. Whether this phenomenon should be considered in the choice of hormone replacement therapy, or in improving the BMD diagnostic standard, needs further study.