No association between the aluminium content of trabecular bone and bone density, mass or size of the proximal femur in elderly men and women

Abstract

Background: Aluminium is considered a bone toxic metal since poisoning can lead to aluminium-induced bone disease in patients with chronic renal failure. Healthy subjects with normal renal function retain 4% of the aluminium consumed. They might thus also accumulate aluminium and eventually be at risk of long-term low-grade aluminium intoxication that can affect bone health.

Methods: We therefore examined 62 patients with femoral neck fractures or osteoarthritis of the hip (age range 38-93), with the aim of examining whether aluminium in bone is associated with bone-mineral density (BMD), content (BMC) or width of the femoral neck measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). During operations bone biopsies were taken from the trabecular bone of the proximal femur. The samples were measured for their content of aluminium using a mass spectrometer.

Results: No significant association between the aluminium content in bone and femoral neck BMD, BMC or width could be found after multivariate adjustment.

Conclusion: Our results indicate that the accumulated aluminium content in bone during life does not substantially influence the extent of osteoporosis.

Figure 1

Tertiles Al-BMD. Average adjusted bone-mineral density and content values of the femoral neck by tertiles of aluminium content of bone. Included in the multivariate model were sex, age (by 10-year groups), body-mass index (continuous), height (continuous), creatinine clearance (continuous), demented hip fracture cases (dichotomous) and non-demented hip-fracture cases (dichotomous).

Figure 2

Tertiles Al-BMC. Average adjusted bone-mineral density and content values of the femoral neck by tertiles of aluminium content of bone. Included in the multivariate model were sex, age (by 10-year groups), body-mass index (continuous), height (continuous), creatinine clearance (continuous), demented hip fracture cases (dichotomous) and non-demented hip-fracture cases (dichotomous).