Reducing alcohol and tobacco consumption is associated with a reduction in the number of hip fractures, reveals a new study.
- A longitudinal study over more than 40 years shows a correlation between the reduction in the consumption of alcohol and tobacco, and the rate of hip fractures.
Drinking less alcohol and smoking cigarettes is good for your bone health. That’s according to a new study by researchers at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), and recently published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
Based on forty years of data from the Framingham Heart Study, a long-term epidemiological study that initially analyzed the incidence of cardiovascular disease, this new work establishes an association between lower rates of hip fractures and lower smoking and of excessive alcohol consumption.
A gradual decline in hip fracture rates
In total, the researchers analyzed data from 4,918 men and 5,634 women who were followed for a first hip fracture between 1970 and 2010. Hip fracture rates, which were adjusted for age , decreased by 4.4% each year over the 40 years of the study. This decline was observed in both men and women.
The team then compared these results with levels of smoking and alcohol consumption. She then found that the smoking rate fell from 38% in the 1970s to 15% between 2006 and 2010. Over the same period, excessive alcohol consumption (defined as three or more drinks a day) is dropped from 7% to 4.5%. Rates of other risk factors for hip fracture, such as being underweight and early menopause, did not change over the study period.
According to Professor Timothy Bhattacharyya, researcher at NIAMS, “this study underscores the continued need for public health interventions to target modifiable lifestyle factors such as smoking and alcohol consumption, in addition to considering osteoporosis treatments in people at risk of fracture from the hip.”
Limits under study
The researchers point out, however, that this is an incidence study and therefore other factors such as improved bone health treatments are not taken into account. Also, the data came exclusively from white individuals, so the authors acknowledge that they don’t know if other populations might show a similar correlation based on lifestyle factors.
Another limiting factor was that the Framingham participants had obesity rates below the national average. Finally, the study did not include measurements of bone mineral density, as such tests were not available until the 1990s.
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