Journal of bone and mineral research : the official journal of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research
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J. Bone Miner. Res. · Aug 2009
Does obesity really make the femur stronger? BMD, geometry, and fracture incidence in the women's health initiative-observational study.
Heavier individuals have higher hip BMD and more robust femur geometry, but it is unclear whether values vary in proportion with body weight in obesity. We studied the variation of hip BMD and geometry across categories of body mass index (BMI) in a subset of postmenopausal non-Hispanic whites (NHWs) from the Women's Health Initiative Observational Cohort (WHI-OS). The implications on fracture incidence were studied among NHWs in the entire WHI-OS. ⋯ Traumatic forces increase with body weight, but fracture rates at the hip and central body were less frequent with increasing BMI, possibly because of greater soft tissue padding. There was no evident protective effect in fracture rates at less padded distal extremity sites. Upper extremity fractures showed no variation with BMI, and lower extremity fracture rates were higher only in the overweight (BMI = 25-29.9 kg/m(2)).