Caffeine intake and bone mineral density in postmenopausal women

Abstract

Aims:Osteoporosis is a metabolic bone disease characterized by low bone mass and deteriorated bone tissue. There is ongoing debate about the effect of caffeine intake on bone metabolism due to inconsistent study results. This study aimed to assess the association between caffeine intake and bone mineral density (BMD).Methods:This single center cross-sectional study, prospectively enrolled postmenopausal women aged between 41 and 65 years who underwent bone mineral density measurement by dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DXA) at the lumbar spine and femoral neck. Caffeine intake was estimated using a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and a caffeine-specific FFQ. Patients consuming more than 260 mg/day caffeine were classified as high consumers.Results:The study included 80 subjects (mean age: 57.1±5.6 years). Daily caffeine intake was 229.7±119.5 mg, and 36.3% (n=29) of the patients was classified as high consumers. The mean total T-score was -1.4±0.9 at the lumbar spine and -1.7±0.9 at femoral neck. High and low caffeine consumers had similar mean total T-score at the lumbar spine (-1.4±1.1 vs. -1.4±0.8, p=0.849). However, femoral neck mean T-score was significantly lower in high caffeine consumers (-2.0±0.9 vs. -1.5±0.7, p=0.033). The amount of daily caffeine intake showed a negative, moderate correlation with femoral neck T-score (r=-0.251, p=0.025).Conclusions:The results of this study suggest that higher caffeine intake may be associated with lower T-scores on DXA of the femoral neck.

Keywords

• osteopenia
• osteoporosis
• caffeine
• bone mineral densitometry
• dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry
• dxa