Fasting glucose level and the risk of incident osteoporosis in the Koreans

Conflicting results have been published regarding the effect of abnormal glucose metabolism on osteoporosis (AGM). Fasting glucose is a reliable indicator for abnormal glucose metabolism. Therefore, the aim of present study is to identify the association of fasting glucose level with the risk of incident osteoporosis.

In a cohort of 59,936 men and 36,690 women (mean age of 63.9 ± 7.1 years) registered in national health insurance database, we assessed the risk of incident osteoporosis according to the quartile levels of baseline fasting glucose (quartile 1: <88 mg/dL, quartile 2: 88-96 mg/dL, quartile 3: 97-107 mg/dL and quartile 4: ≥108 mg/dL) and glycemic status categorized into normal, impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and diabetes mellitus (DM). Multivariate Cox-proportional hazard model was used in calculating adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for incident osteoporosis (adjusted HRs [95% CI]).

Compared with first quartile (reference), the risk of osteoporosis significantly decreased above the fourth quartile in men (second quartile: 1.04 [0.91-1.18], third quartile: 0.88 (0.76-1.00) and fourth quartile: 0.80 [0.70-0.92]) and above third quartile in women (second quartile: 0.95 [0.90-1.01], third quartile: 0.91 [0.86-0.97] and fourth quartile: 0.82 [0.77-0.88]). The risk of osteoporosis was less associated with IFG (men: 0.84 [0.76-0.94] and women: 0.93 [0.89-0.98]) and DM (men: 0.77 [0.65-0.91] and women: 0.75 [0.69-0.81]) than normal glucose group in both men and women.

Our results suggest that elevated fasting glucose potentially associated with the decreased risk of osteoporosis.

This retrospective study investigated the association between fasting glucose level and incidence of osteoporosis. Our findings indicate that elevated fasting glucose is significantly associated with the decreased risk of osteoporosis.