Low bone mineral density in middle-aged women: A red flag for sarcopenia

© 2017 by The North American Menopause Society. Objective: This study evaluated whether low bone density, a condition related to aging, is associated with low muscle mass, a surrogate for sarcopenia, and whether it could be used as a marker of the condition. Methods: We studied 483 women aged 35 to 69 years old who appeared healthy and attended a preventive gynecological examination. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry was used to measure bone mineral density (BMD) and regional body composition. BMD was assessed using the T-score. Low appendicular lean mass (aLM) adjusted by height (aLM index) was defined according to Baumgartner et al (<5.45 kg/m 2). The association of low aLM index with bone mass was evaluated with a binary logistic regression using a cutoff point on the receiver operating characteristic curves for the T-score of -1.5. Results: The participants had a mean age of 54.7 ± 9.1 years, body mass index of 24.6 ± 3.6 kg/m 2, aLM index of 5.9 ± 0.6 kg/m 2 (22.6% showed sarcopen