Prevalence of Osteoporosis and Its Correlation With Common Secondary Risk Factors in Population from Rural Areas of South India

Abstract

ABSTRACT:
 Osteoporosis is a common metabolic disorder characterised by decreased bone mass and weakened micro-architecture of bone tissue. In 2014 Osteoporosis international estimated osteoporosis to be one of the leading causes of disability, depression, and early mortality in the elderly. After 50 years of age, 1 in 3 women and 1 in 5 men experience osteoporotic fractures. This is projected to cause a yearly loss of 5.8 million healthy life years to disability. The number of patients who attend the outpatient clinic and emergency department of Sanjay Gandhi institute of trauma and orthopaedics with fragility fractures has been increasing, hence to know the prevalence of osteoporosis in the general population who were asymptomatic, we decided to conduct a study in the rural areas of south India.
 
 RESULTS:
 The prevalence of osteoporosis in the rural population was more in females at 42.2%, whereas the males had a prevalence of 32.5%. Among the population with habits of tobacco consumption and alcohol consumption, the prevalence was 78% and 30.6% respectively. 20.2 % of non-smokers and 39.7% of non-alcoholics were osteoporotic. Among the population with comorbidities, 53.6% of diabetes and 55.4% of hypertensives were osteoporotic. 33.7% of non-diabetics were osteoporotic, and 29.5% of hypertensives were osteoporotic. The correlation between osteoporosis and the individual risk factors ranged between weak negative to moderately positive.(r = - 0.2 to 0.5). The correlation between the combination of all the four risk factors and osteoporosis is weakly positive (r = 0.339), which is highly significant (p-value = 0.001).
 
 CONCLUSION:
 The prevalence of osteoporosis is high in rural populations over 50 years. There is a significant positive correlation between osteoporosis and secondary risk factors like smoking, tobacco chewing, alcohol consumption, diabetes, and hypertension.