[Bone and calcium metabolism in elderly women]

Abstract

Bone mass of elderly women reduces after menopause, but the rate of reduction differ individually especially in the elderly, because bone metabolism of the elderly is influenced by many factors such as hormones, fractures, drugs, ability of exercise and/or nutritional level. Therefore, it is quite difficult to determine the normal ranges of the metabolism. As a whole, aging accelerates bone turnover slowly with wide range of individual variation. Subnormal renal function may effect on the excretion or metabolism of bone markers, such as osteocalcin. Urinary markers such as NTX corrected by urinary creatinine may be higher than the real level, because of low creatinine production in the elderly. These factors may influence on the elevated bone metabolism resulting in the discrepancy with morphometric evaluation.