Association between physical performance and bone mass in community-dwelling postmenopausal Japanese women: The Unzen study.

Background: Low bone mass is an independent risk factor for osteoporotic fractures. We examined the association between physical performance and bone mass using quantitative ultrasound in community-dwelling postmenopausal Japanese women.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study on 524 community-dwelling postmenopausal Japanese women who were not being administered osteoporosis medications. Physical performance was assessed on the basis of grip strength, chair stand time, and functional reach. The stiffness index was measured as a quantitative ultrasound parameter for heel bone mass.
Results: Physical performance, assessed by grip strength, chair stand time, and functional reach, and the stiffness index significantly decreased with age (both p<0.001). The multiple linear regression analysis showed that grip strength (p = 0.001), chair stand time (p = 0.004), and functional reach (p = 0.048) were significantly associated with the stiffness index after adjusting for age, body mass index, smoking, drinking, and exercise.
Conclusions: Physical performance was significantly associated with heel bone mass in community-dwelling postmenopausal Japanese women.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Suiko et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)