Greater dietary antioxidant intake linked to decreased osteoporosis risk in menopause

Key takeaways :

• Postmenopausal women in the highest quartile of dietary antioxidant intake had a lower osteoporosis likelihood.
• Postmenopausal women in CDAI quartile three vs. the lowest quartile also had a lower osteoporosis likelihood.

Among postmenopausal women, consuming more dietary antioxidants was associated with decreased likelihood of osteoporosis, according to a population-based study published in Menopause.

“No study has used the composite dietary antioxidant index to evaluate total dietary antioxidant intake and the likelihood of osteoporosis,” Ruyi Zhang, MM, from the MOE Key Lab of Environment and Health in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the School of Public Health at Tongji Medical College at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, and colleagues wrote. “Therefore, in this study, we investigated the association of the CDAI and the combination of antioxidant nutrients with the likelihood of osteoporosis in middle-aged women recruited in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys in the United States.”

Researchers used data from 1,157 were premenopausal and 2,261 were postmenopausal women aged 40 years or older and obtained nutrient intake data using two 24-hour recalls. Using the composite dietary antioxidant index (CDAI), researchers identified the intake of beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D, selenium, zinc, copper and iron.

Overall, 22.7% of women had prevalent osteoporosis.

Postmenopausal women in the highest CDAI quartiles for dietary beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C and iron intakes had a low likelihood of osteoporosis. Postmenopausal women in CDAI quartile three vs. the lowest quartile (OR = 0.64; 95% CI, 0.43-0.96) and in the highest quartile vs. the lowest quartile (OR = 0.56; 95% CI, 0.35-0.89) were less likely to have osteoporosis.

“Our findings were considered preliminary and may help guide future prospective studies on the relationship between the intake of nutrients with antioxidant properties and bone health in middle-aged women,” the researchers wrote.