Yonsei Med J.  2011 Sep;52(5):739-745. 10.3349/ymj.2011.52.5.739.

The Positive Association between Peripheral Blood Cell Counts and Bone Mineral Density in Postmenopausal Women

• Kim HL
• Cho HY
• Park IY
• Choi JM
• Kim M
• Jang HJ
• Hwang SM

• KMID: 1108065
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3349/ymj.2011.52.5.739

Abstract

PURPOSE
Accumulating evidence has shown a close connection between hematopoiesis and bone formation. Our aim was to evaluate the association between peripheral blood cell counts and bone mineral density (BMD) in a sample of postmenopausal women.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
three hundreds thirty eight healthy postmenopausal women who underwent BMD measurement during their health check-up were investigated. BMD was measured by dual energy X-ray asorptiometry at L1-L4 spine, femoral neck and total proximal femur. BMD was expressed as a T-score: among T-scores obtained from three different sites (L1-L4 spine, femoral neck and total proximal femur), the lowest T-score was considered to be the subject's T-score.
RESULTS
The prevalence of osteopenia and osteoporosis diagnosed by T-score in the study participants were 49.4% (167/338) and 5.0% (17/338), respectively. Peripheral blood white blood cell (WBC), red blood cell (RBC) and platelet counts had significant positive correlations with T-scores (p<0.001) upon simple linear regression analysis. A multiple linear regression analysis, after controlling of confounders including age, body weight, systolic blood pressure, alkaline phosphatase and creatinine, showed that WBC (beta=0.127; standard error=0.043; p=0.014), RBC (beta=0.192; standard error=0.139; p<0.001) and platelet (beta=0.097; standard error=0.001; p=0.050) counts still had significant positive association with T-scores.
CONCLUSION
The study results showed a positive relationship between blood cell counts and bone mineral density in postmenopausal women, supporting the idea of a close connection between hematopoiesis and bone formation. The study results also suggest that blood cell counts could be a putative marker for estimating BMD in postmenopausal women.

Keyword

Association; blood cells; bone density; postmenopause

MeSH Terms

Aged
*Blood Cell Count
*Bone Density
Female
Hematopoiesis
Humans
Linear Models
Middle Aged
Osteogenesis
Postmenopause/*blood/*metabolism
Republic of Korea

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Scatter plots showing the linear associations between blood cell counts and T-scores. r, Pearson's coefficient; WBC, white blood cell; RBC, red blood cell.

• 

  Fig. 2 Blood cell counts according to three subject groups by BMD (i.e., normal, osteopenia and osteoporosis). As BMD decreases blood cell counts also gradually decrease. *all three p-values for white blood cell, red blood cell and platelet counts are <0.001, estimated by one-way analysis of variances (ANOVA). BMD, bone mineral density; WBC, white blood cell; RBC, red blood cell.

• 

  Fig. 3 Simple flow chart showing our hypothesis and explaining the association between blood cell counts and bone mineral density.

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