Correlates of T 50 and relationships with bone mineral density in community-living older men: the osteoporotic fractures in men (MrOS) study.

Purpose: T ₅₀ is a novel serum-based marker that assesses the propensity of calcification in serum. Shorter T ₅₀ indicates greater propensity to calcify and it has been associated to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality among patients with kidney disease. In the general population, neither the correlates of T ₅₀ nor the relationships of T ₅₀ with bone mineral density (BMD) are known.
Methods: We performed a nested cross-sectional study selecting 150 individuals at random among participants from the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (MrOS) Study, a study of community-living older men. We categorized individuals into tertiles of T ₅₀ and compared demographics and disease indicators across tertiles. We utilized linear regression to evaluate the cross-sectional association between T ₅₀ and hip and spine BMD in multivariable models.
Results: Older age was associated with shorter T ₅₀ . Kidney function tended to be lower in those with shorter T ₅₀ and the prevalence of CVD and peripheral arterial disease in those with shorter T ₅₀ , albeit these findings did not achieve statistical significance. We found no statistically significant associations between T ₅₀ and total hip or total spine BMD in either unadjusted or multivariable adjusted models.
Conclusions: T ₅₀ , a novel indicator of serum calcification propensity, is not associated with BMD in community-living older men. Future larger studies should determine if T ₅₀ may give insights to CVD in the general population above and beyond traditional risk factors.