Association between neck circumference and bone mineral loss: A cross-sectional study in Sichuan province in China

The associations of fat distribution with bone health are debatable. We aimed to investigate the associations between neck circumference (NC) and bone mineral loss among the adult Chinese population in Sichuan province.

We examined overall NC size and NC stratums (≤35 cm, 3538 cm) with bone mineral density (BMD) at the femoral neck, lumbar spine, total hip skeletal sites in 135 men and 479 women respectively, and assessed whether adiposity, lipids, and calcium and phosphorus levels, might have a biased role in the relationship of NC and bone mineral loss with linear regression, logistic regression, and restricted cubic spline models.

The overall NC size is not independently associated with BMD at all sites. However, stratification for NC revealed that the positive correlation between NC and BMD at all sites were significant in the NC stratum 1 (≤35 cm) in women (all p<0.05) and NC stratum 2 (3538 cm) compared with NC stratum 1 using logistic regression. However, in women, no statistically significant association was observed between NC stratum 1 and BMD values after adjustment for the same confounders.

Our findings suggest a NC stratum-specific association between NC size and bone mineral loss in men in Sichuan province in China, but not in women.