Correlation of transmenopausal bone mass in healthy white women: a long-term longitudinal study

It is well established that menopause is associated with accelerated bone loss. However, no study has tested whether bone mass after the menopause transition is correlated with the premenopausal bone mass; that is, whether a high premenopausal bone mass will be predicatively high after menopause in an individual.

We examined the association of transmenopausal bone mass in 54 healthy premenopausal white women age 46 years or older at the initiation. These subjects experienced normal menopause and stayed in the study at least 1 year after their last menses without hormone replacement therapy. Bone mass of the lumbar spine (L2-L4) and total body were measured semiannually for 9.5 years.

In the 6-year period for which the data were analyzed, we found statistically significant correlations (p<0.05) over the 5.5-year and 5-year periods around menopause for pairwise transmenopausal lumbar spine Z-score and total body bone mineral content, respectively. The correlation declined with increase of the time interval across menopause. We conclude that for a limited time interval, bone mass after menopause is correlated with that before menopause.