Anti-Inflammatory Diet Could Reduce Risk Of Bone Loss And Boost Overall Bone Health In Women

A recent study finds that anti-inflammatory diets which include vegetables, fruits, fish and whole grains could boost bone health and prevent fractures in women. The study authors analyzed data from the landmark Women's Health Initiative so as to compare levels of inflammatory elements in the diet to bone mineral density and fractures.

The researchers found a new relationship between food and bone health. The study, found that women with low inflammatory diets, which was determined based on a scoring system known as Dietary Inflammatory Index, lost less bone density during the six years period after the study compared to those with the most-inflammatory diets, even though, they had the lowest bone density overall at the beginning of the study.

In addition, diets with low inflammatory level corresponded with lower risk of hip fracture among a sub-group of the study on post-menopausal white women below the age of 63, according to UPI. The findings suggest that bone health could improve when women choose a diet higher in beneficial fats, whole grains and plants, lead author and assistant professor of human nutrition at The Ohio State University, Tonya Orchard said.

The findings of the study suggest that healthy diets impact the bones as women age, thus, providing another reason to support the recommendations for healthful diet in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, she added. However, the finding of the study is not conclusive - it is still not possible to definitively link dietary patterns and bone health and fracture outcomes as the study was observational.

The findings only support a growing body of evidence that factors which increase inflammation can also increase osteoporosis risk, study co-author and director of Ohio State's Center for Clinical and Translational Science, Rebecca Jackson said. The study was inspired by previous studies on the subject, which have linked high levels of inflammatory markers in the blood to bone loss and fractures in older women and men.

The researchers investigated into the dietary choices that contribute to inflammation in the body. They were able to accomplish this by utilizing the Dietary Inflammatory Index developed to assess the quality of diet from maximally to minimally inflammatory based on nutrients consumed.

Other dietary information and data on bone density and fracture were collected from a large group of the participants in the Women's Health Initiative which is the largest study of postmenopausal women's health undertaken in the history of the United States.

The WHI Participants were between the age of 50 to 79 when they enrolled in the study of prevention and control of common diseases impacting older women from 1993 to 1998. The current study checked dietary data from 160,191 women and assigned inflammation scores based on 32 food components that the women self-reported that they ate three months prior to their enrollment.

They used bone-mineral-density data from a subset of 10,290 women and collected Fracture data for the entire study group. The researchers found an association only between high-inflammatory diets and fracture in younger white women who participated in the study.

Higher scores were associated with up to 50 percent higher risk of hip fracture in Caucasian women that are below the age of 63, compared to women in the group with lower inflammatory scores. In the overall study group, more-inflammatory diets were not linked to fracture, as the researchers found a lower risk of lower-arm and total fracture in women with the highest dietary inflammation score, according to Science Daily.

They believe that women with lower inflammation scores were more physically active as a group and thus, were at a greater risk of falls. The researchers also found that women with the least-inflammatory diets had lower bone mineral density at the beginning of the study, but lost less bone than other participants with high-inflammation score.

 The low bone density could be linked with the fact that women with healthier diets are more likely to have a smaller body build, as larger people tend to have higher bone density to support their larger frames. The researchers published their findings in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.