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Association between walking speed and calcaneus stiffness index in older adults

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Journal of Bone and Mineral Metabolism Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Introduction

The aim here is to examine the association between objectively measured usual walking speed (UWS) and bone status in community-dwelling older Chinese.

Materials and methods

This is a cross-sectional study of a population of 1528 adults (817 females, mean age 68.5 ± 5.3; 711 males, mean age 69.1 ± 5.2) aged 60–79, living in communities in Shanghai. Walking speed was assessed using a 4-m walk test at a usual-pace walking speed a walking speed at which the subject felt relaxed—and bone status measured by quantitative ultrasound (QUS). The health-related characteristics of participants include family background, physical activity level, chronic disease, smoking and alcohol consumption, frequency of falls, vitamin intake, and hormone therapy.

Results

Multiple linear regression is used to analyses any association between UWS and bone status, adjusting for confounding factors showing a significant association between faster UWS and a higher calcaneal stiffness index (SI) (p < 0.01). Comparing the lowest quartile of the data set with the highest at UWS, a high SI is achieved with 5.34 (95% CI = 3.22, 7.46) (p < 0.01), after adjusting for confounders. An increase of 1 dm/s was associated with a 0.91 (95% CI = 0.53, 1.29) increase in SI. This relationship for most subgroups is consistent.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that UWS can be a sensitive indicator of calcaneal bone loss among an older population.

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Data availability

Because of the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree to the public sharing of their data, and so supporting data are not available.

Abbreviations

BUA:

Broadband ultrasound attenuation

BMD:

Bone mineral density

BMI:

Body mass index

MVPA:

Moderate-vigorous physical activity

QUS:

Quantitative ultrasonography

SI:

Stiffness index

SOS:

Speed of sound

UWS:

Usual walking speed

VIF:

Variance inflation factor

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants for their voluntary participation in this study. We gratefully appreciate the resources provided by Shanghai Surveillance Center for physical fitness.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2020YFC2003301).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Tang Zhou and Jing-jing Wang contributed equally to this work and share first authorship.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Exercise and Health, Shanghai University of Sport, 399 Changhai Road, Yangpu District, Shanghai, 200438, China

    Tang Zhou, Yiyan Li, Yanhua Lu, Jiajia Liu, Minghui Quan & Peijie Chen

  2. Shanghai Research Institute of Sports Science, 87 Wuxing Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai, 200030, China

    Jingjing Wang, Jintao Hong & Dao Wang

  3. Shanghai Anti-Doping Agency, 87 Wuxing Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai, 200030, China

    Jingjing Wang, Jintao Hong & Dao Wang

  4. Shanghai Frontiers Science Research Base of Exercise and Metabolic Health, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, 200438, China

    Minghui Quan

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  1. Tang Zhou
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Contributions

Conceptualization: TZ, DW, P-jC; Methodology: JjW, Y-yL, Y-hL, JL; Formal analysis: TZ, M-hQ; Investigation: TZ, J-jW, Y-yL, Y-hL, JL, J-tH; Writing—Original Draft: TZ; Writing—Review and Editing: TZ, J-jW, J-tH, M-hQ; Funding acquisition: M-hQ, P-jC; Resources: DW, P-jC; Supervision: MQ, DW, P-jC. TZ and J-jW: contributed equally to this paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Minghui Quan, Dao Wang or Peijie Chen.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Zhou, T., Wang, J., Li, Y. et al. Association between walking speed and calcaneus stiffness index in older adults. J Bone Miner Metab 41, 693–701 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00774-023-01447-6

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