Diabetes mellitus, thyroid dysfunctions and osteoporosis: is there an association?

Osteoporosis is the most common metabolic bone disease with complicated, multifactorial and heterogenic nature that has no known pathological cause. As the role of Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and thyroid dysfunctions in the prevalence of osteoporosis is not exactly known, therefore this study was designed to evaluate the probable association between osteoporosis with DM and thyroid dysfunctions in Iranian patients.

In this cross-sectional study, 300 subjects out of the total number of patients referring to Gorgan bone densitometry centers (3000subjects) were selected via random sampling method in 2009. Individual characteristics, DM, thyroid dysfunctions and densitometry results were collected from densitometry records. Data analysis was carried out by SPSS version 16 software and by using Chi square and T-test. The level of significance in all tests was considered 0.05.

The mean of T-score in lumbar and femoral areas of diabetic patients were -0.87 ± 1.08 and -1.94 ± 1.33 and in patient with thyroid dysfunctions was -0.80 ± 1.09 and -1.64 ± 1.24 respectively. The mean of BMD in lumbar and femoral areas of diabetic patients were 0.96 ± 0.19 and 0.75 ± 0.19 and in patient with thyroid dysfunctions were 0.96 ± 0.17 and 0.76 ±0.19 respectively. The mean of BMI in osteoporotic subjects in the lumbar and femoral areas were 25.94 ± 5.62 and 26.95 ± 5.20 respectively. The association between BMI and BMD in the lumbar and femoral areas were statistically significant, but the association between DM and thyroid dysfunctions with BMD and T-score in the femoral and lumbar areas was not statistically significant (P-value > 0.05).

The results of current study show that there is no association between DM and thyroid dysfunctions with osteoporosis.