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A preliminary cross-sectional study of 623 healthy Kuwaiti women aged 20--79 years was carried out using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) to establish reference values of bone mineral density (BMD). Measurements were taken at the lumbar spine and proximal femur. The data were compared with normative data taken from Caucasian U.S./North European women over 6 decades of age. Our results showed the expected decline in BMD with age, especially for postmenopausal women. Despite differences in ethnicity, diet, and lifestyle no statistically significant differences in BMD were detected between the Kuwaiti subjects and the Caucasian normative data. Age-matched, clinically well-defined normative data for a given population must be used to diagnose osteoporosis and establish fracture risk. This study represents baseline data for Kuwaiti Arab females: it indicates that their BMD values are close to those of Caucasian females and higher than those reported recently for Lebanese and Saudi females. Further data is being collected to increase the statistical power of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]