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Dietary quercetin inhibits bone loss without effect on the uterus in ovariectomized mice

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Abstract

Quercetin is a major dietary flavonoid found in onions and other vegetables, and potentially has beneficial effects on disease prevention. In the present study, we demonstrate for the first time the effects of dietary quercetin on bone loss and uterine weight loss by ovariectomy in vivo. Female mice were ovariectomized (OVX) and were randomly allocated to 3 groups: a control diet or a diet with 0.25% (LQ) or 2.5% quercetin (HQ). After 4 weeks, dietary quercetin had no effects on uterine weight in OVX mice, but bone mineral density of the lumbar spine L4 and femur measured by peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) was higher in both the sham and the HQ groups than in the OVX group. Histomorphometric analysis showed that the HQ group restored bone volume (BV/TV) completely in distal femoral cancellous bone, but did not reduce the osteoclast surface area and osteoclast number when compared with the OVX group. In in-vitro experiments using mouse monocyte/macrophage cell line RAW264.7 cells, however, quercetin and its conjugate, quercetin-3-O-beta-d-glucuronide dose-dependently inhibited the receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappa B ligand (RANKL)-induced osteoclast differentiation, and the RANKL-stimulated expression of osteoclast related genes was also inhibited by quercetin. The luciferase reporter assay showed that quercetin did not appear to have estrogenic activity through estrogen receptors. These results suggest that dietary quercetin inhibits bone loss without effect on the uterus in OVX mice and does not act as a potent inhibitor of osteoclastogenesis or as a selective estrogen receptor modulator in vivo.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants to H. Yamamoto, Y. Taketani and E. Takeda from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan; by grants from the 21st Century COE Program, Human Nutritional Science on Stress Control, Tokushima, Japan; and by Biogenics Research, Kagome Co., Ltd., Tochigi, Japan. The authors thank Mr. K. Nonaka (Elk Corporation) and Mr. H. Hayashi (Kagome), for valuable discussions and technical support during this research. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of our laboratory colleagues.

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Nutrition, Institute of Health Biosciences, The University of Tokushima, 3-18-15 Kuramoto, Tokushima, 770-8503, Japan

    Mitsuyoshi Tsuji, Hironori Yamamoto, Tadatoshi Sato, Yoko Mizuha, Yutaka Taketani & Eiji Takeda

  2. Department of Food Science, Institute of Health Biosciences, The University of Tokushima Graduate School, Tokushima, Japan

    Yoshichika Kawai & Junji Terao

  3. Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, The University of Tokyo Graduate School, Tokyo, Japan

    Shigeaki Kato

  4. Biogenics Research, Kagome Co., Ltd., Tochigi, Japan

    Takahiro Inakuma

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  1. Mitsuyoshi Tsuji
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Correspondence to Hironori Yamamoto.

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Tsuji, M., Yamamoto, H., Sato, T. et al. Dietary quercetin inhibits bone loss without effect on the uterus in ovariectomized mice. J Bone Miner Metab 27, 673–681 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00774-009-0088-0

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