Association of apolipoprotein A1 with osteoporosis: a cross-sectional study

Higher levels of apolipoprotein A1 (ApoA1) were associated with higher risk of osteoporosis, which supports the argument that lipid metabolism is involved in bone metabolism.

Although the current evidence shows that lipid metabolism and osteoporosis are closely related to cardiovascular disease, the association between ApoA1 and osteoporosis is still unknown. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between ApoA1 and osteoporosis.

In this cross-sectional study, we included 7743 participants in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. ApoA1 was regarded as an exposure variable and osteoporosis was considered as an outcome variable. Multivariate logistic regression analysis, sensitivity analysis, and receiver operator characteristic (ROC) were used to assess the association of ApoA1 with osteoporosis.

Participants with higher ApoA1 had higher rates of osteoporosis compared to participants with lower ApoA1 (P <  0.05). Individuals with osteoporosis had higher levels of ApoA1 than individuals without osteoporosis (P <  0.05). In multivariate logistic regression analysis adjusted for age, sex, race, hypertension, diabetes, gout, hypotensive drugs, hypoglycemic drugs, systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, apolipoprotein B, blood urea nitrogen, albumin, uric acid, hemoglobin A1c, alkaline phosphatase and total calcium, higher ApoA1 was strongly associated with higher risk of osteoporosis, whether as a continuous variable or a categorical variable [Model 3, OR (95% CI), P value: 2.289 (1.350, 3.881), 0.002 and 1.712 (1.183, 2.478), 0.004]. And after excluding individuals with gout, the correlation between them remained and was significant (P <  0.01). And ROC analysis also showed that ApoA1 could predict the development of osteoporosis (AUC = 0.650, P <  0.001).

ApoA1 was closely associated with osteoporosis.