There is a link between osteoporosis and dementia, according to this new study. This is because the risk factors are similar.
200 million women have osteoporosis worldwide. In France, one in four women is ill after 50, compared to one in eight men. Osteoporosis is a disease very long silent. The bone mass decreases and the internal architecture of the skeleton weakens.
Consequence: the fractures multiply. In recent decades, several groups of researchers have analyzed the disease, and its link with the risks of cognitive decline, dementia. The latter is a general term that groups together several diseases in which brain functions such as thinking, memory, orientation, recollection and language are disturbed.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most well-known form of dementia. If the link between osteoporosis and dementia has already been established in recent years, the published studies were not carried out in Europe. A new research, the results of which are published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease correct that.
60,000 patients followed for twenty years
This study, conducted by German researchers, used the database IQVIA, which compiles information on drug prescriptions, diagnoses and demographics, obtained from anonymous computer systems. In all, 60,000 patients were followed between 1993 and 2012, ie for twenty years. Half of the people had osteoporosis, the other half did not. According to the results of the study, osteoporosis was associated with a 1.2 times higher risk of dementia in women, compared to 1.3 in men.
Similar risk factors
“The main hypothesis to explain the association between osteoporosis and dementia is that these two conditions present similar risk factors”, explains Louis Jacob, co-author of the external study in medicine at the Paris-Descartes university clinic.
These risk factors are genetic, with the APOE4 allele of apolipoprotein E for example, which is also the most important genetic factor in Alzheimer’s disease. There is also a risk factor of lower vitamin K levels, vitamin D deficiency or even androgens (hormones that make male sex characteristics appear, such as body hair) and estrogen (female hormones).
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