Background: Fat mass, which is a major component of body weight, is directly related to bone mineral density and reduced fracture risk. It is not known whether abdominal fat is associated with hip fracture. The present study was designed to examine the association between abdominal fat and hip fracture in women and men aged 60+ years.Methods: This was a nested case-control study with one fracture case being matched with two controls of the same age. In women 63 cases were matched with 126 controls, and in men 26 cases were matched with 52 controls. Hip fracture was confirmed by X-ray and personal interview. Other measurements included weight, height, body mass index (BMI), abdominal fat, and femoral neck bone density (FNBMD). Conditional logistic regression model was used to analyse data.Results: The odds ratio of hip fracture risk associated with each 10% lower abdominal fat was 1.5 (95% CI, 1.1 to 2.1) in women and 1.2 (95% CI, 0.7 to 2.0) in men. However after adjusting for FNBMD or body weight, the abdominal fat-fracture association was no longer statistically significant. Similarly, body weight and BMI was each significantly associated with hip fracture risk (in women), but after taking with account the effect of FNBMD, the association become statistically non-significant.Conclusion: Lower abdominal fat was associated with an increased risk of hip fracture in elderly women, but the association was not independent of FNBMD or weight. The contribution of abdominal fat to hip fracture risk is likely to be modest.

Accurate measurement of parathyroid hormone (PTH) is crucial for therapeutic decision-making in patients with chronic kidney disease-mineral and bone disorder (CKD-MBD). The second-generation PTH assays, often referred to as “intact PTH” assays, are the current standard and most available assays in clinical practice. However, intact PTH assays measure both full-length biologically active PTH and heterogeneous PTH fragments in the circulation, providing the equivocal value of PTH measurement in patients with CKD-MBD. Due to the variability of PTH assays, preanalytical sample errors, and the phenomenon of end-organ PTH hyporesponsiveness, current CKD-MBD guidelines recommend a wide range for serum PTH targets (2–9 the upper normal limit of the intact PTH assay) in dialysis patients to diminish the risk of developing adynamic bone disease. Nevertheless, a sizeable proportion of CKD patients still experience renal osteodystrophy despite having serum PTH levels within the recommended range. The primary cause of this inconsistency is the analytical interference of various PTH fragments and oxidized PTH forms that considerably accumulate in CKD patients. Therefore, a new mass spectrometry-based assay, which is capable of specifically measuring the whole spectra of PTH fragments, can potentially improve diagnostic accuracy for renal osteodystrophy. However, the effects of different PTH fragments on bone metabolism, vascular calcification, and mortality in CKD patients warrant further research.

Introduction. The comparative effect of new-onset diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension (HT) on long-term mortality is a matter of debate. Materials and Methods. From 2007 to 2017, a 10-year longitudinal retrospective cohort study was conducted in Thailands tertiary care setting. As baseline data, health check-up data from apparently healthy participants without underlying disease from 2007 were extracted. The vital status of all participants was determined in 2017, ten years after an initial examination. The impact of new-onset DM and HT at baseline on 10-year all-cause mortality was investigated using multivariable logistic regression analysis. Results. The prevalence of new-onset DM and HT was 6.4 and 28.8, respectively, at baseline. Newly diagnosed diabetes increased the risk of all-cause mortality over 10 years (adjusted OR 4.77 and 95 CI 2.23-9.99). HT, on the other hand, did not increase the risk of death (adjusted OR 1.24 and 95 CI 0.65-2.35). Different HT and DM status combinations were compared to a nondiabetic, nonhypertensive reference. Individuals who were diabetic and hypertensive had a greater risk of death (adjusted OR 6.22 and 95 CI 2.22-17.00). Having DM without HT also increased the risk of death (adjusted OR 4.36 and 95 CI 1.35-12.87). However, having HT without DM did not result in a significant increase in 10-year mortality risk (adjusted OR 1.21 and 95 CI 0.57-2.56). Conclusion. In an apparently healthy population, new-onset DM is more strongly associated with 10-year all-cause mortality than new-onset HT. Having both DM and HT was associated with a greater risk of death when compared to having DM or HT alone.