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Bisphosphonates prevent age-related weight loss in Japanese postmenopausal women

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Abstract

Decline of body weight with aging is a major risk factor for frailty, osteoporosis and fracture, suggesting that treatment for osteoporosis may affect body composition. Recently, we have shown that 5-year treatment with raloxifene prevented age-related weight loss, suggesting some other drugs for osteoporosis may also prevent a decrease in body weight with aging. The present study aimed to identify the relationship between bisphosphonate treatment and body composition markers. We measured bone mineral density (BMD), body composition, and bone remodeling markers in 551 Japanese postmenopausal women with bisphosphonate treatment, which included risedronate or alendronate treatment (BP-treatment group; N = 193) and without treatment by any osteoporosis drug (no-treatment group; N = 358) for 4–7 years (mean observation periods; 5.5 years) and analyzed the relationship of these with BMD, body mass index (BMI), body weight, and biochemical markers. The mean (SD) age of the participants was 68.6 (9.8) years in the BP-treatment group and 63.7 (10.6) years in the no-treatment group. Percent changes in body weight and BMI were significantly different between the BP-treatment and no-treatment groups (P < 0.01 and P < 0.01, respectively). In multiple linear regression analysis, bisphosphonate treatment was a significant independent determinant of percent changes in body weight and BMI (P < 0.01 and P = 0.01, respectively). Long-term use of bisphosphonates prevented reductions in BMI and body weight, usually observed in elderly women. Our results suggest that bisphosphonate treatment not only reduces the risk for incident osteoporotic fractures but also for frailty in the elderly.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (25293214 and 16K09796), the Ministry of Culture, Education, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, and Japan Osteoporosis Foundation. We appreciate all the volunteers for precious clinical data and samples.

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Author notes

  1. Tomohiko Urano and Masataka Shiraki contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geriatric Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bumkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan

    Tomohiko Urano & Satoshi Inoue

  2. Department of Geriatric Medicine, School of Medicine, International University of Health and Welfare, Chiba, Japan

    Tomohiko Urano

  3. Research Institute and Practice for Involutional Diseases, Nagano, Japan

    Masataka Shiraki

  4. Public Health Research Foundation, Tokyo, Japan

    Tatsuhiko Kuroda

  5. Department of Pharmacoepidemiology, Graduate School of Medicine and Public Health, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Shiro Tanaka

  6. Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Lipid Research, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Fumihiko Urano

  7. Division of Nutritional Physiology, Kagawa Nutrition University, Saitama, Japan

    Kazuhiro Uenishi

  8. Department of Functional Biogerontology, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo, Japan

    Satoshi Inoue

  9. Research Center for Genomic Medicine, Saitama Medical School, Saitama, Japan

    Satoshi Inoue

Authors
  1. Tomohiko Urano
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  2. Masataka Shiraki
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  3. Tatsuhiko Kuroda
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  4. Shiro Tanaka
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  5. Fumihiko Urano
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  6. Kazuhiro Uenishi
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  7. Satoshi Inoue
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Satoshi Inoue.

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Conflict of interest

Tatsuhiko Kuroda is an employee of Asahi Kasei. Tomohiko Urano, Masataka Shiraki, Shiro Tanaka, Fumihiko Urano, Kazuhiro Uenishi and Satoshi Inoue declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Urano, T., Shiraki, M., Kuroda, T. et al. Bisphosphonates prevent age-related weight loss in Japanese postmenopausal women. J Bone Miner Metab 36, 734–740 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00774-017-0891-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00774-017-0891-y

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