Bone mineral density and cardiovascular risk factors in postmenopausal women with coronary artery disease

It has been suggested that osteoporosis and coronary artery disease (CAD) have overlapping pathophysiological mechanisms and related risk factors. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between several traditional cardiovascular risk factors and measures of bone mineral density (BMD) in postmenopausal women with and without clinically significant CAD defined angiographically. A case-control study was undertaken of 180 postmenopausal women (aged between 48 and 88 years) who were recruited from King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Saudi Arabia. Study subjects underwent dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry and coronary angiography. The presence of hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, obesity, smoking and physical activity was identified from clinical examination and history. Demographic, anthropometric and biochemical characteristics were measured. Univariate and multivariate analyses were employed to explore the relationships between cardiovascular risk factors, including BMD, and the presence of CAD. CAD patients were more likely to have a lower BMD and T-score at the femoral neck than those without CAD (P<0.05). Significant differences were found between the groups for fasting lipid profile, fasting blood glucose and anthropometric measures (P<0.05). Conditional logistic regression showed that 3 risk factors were significantly related with the presence of CAD: high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (odds ratio, OR: 0.226, 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.062-0.826), fasting plasma glucose (OR: 1.154, 95% CI: 1.042-1.278) and femoral neck T-score (OR: 0.545, 95% CI: 0.374-0.794). This study suggests an association of low BMD and elevated CAD risk. Nevertheless, additional longitudinal studies are needed to determine the temporal sequence of this association.