Diabetic women at higher risk of hip fracture

The risk of sustaining hip fractures is heightened in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), particularly in women and in those with suboptimal cardiometabolic-renal health, a recent study has found.

Researchers conducted a prospective analysis of 22,325 T2D patients (age >40 years; 52.4 percent male) enrolled from the Hong Kong Diabetes Register between 1994 and 2015. Over a mean follow-up duration of 8.7±5.2 years, 603 hip fracture admissions were reported, with 189 and 414 occurring in men and women, respectively.

The resulting overall crude hip fracture incidence rate was 315.1 per 100,000 person years. Those who sustained hip fractures were significantly older, more likely to be women, had longer diabetes duration, and had generally worse micro- and macrovascular and cardiometabolic health.

After excluding 308 patients with past major osteoporotic fractures (MOF), Cox regression analysis was performed on 22,017 patients, of whom 588 and 399 sustained hip fractures or other MOFs, respectively; the remaining participants did not develop and MOF.

Compared to participants who did not sustain any fracture, the following factors significantly increased the risk of hip fractures: female sex (hazard ratio [HR], 2.01, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.61–2.51), age (HR, 1.08, 95 percent CI, 1.07–1.09), body mass index (HR, 0.93, 95 percent CI, 0.90–0.95), albuminuria (HR, 1.52, 95 percent CI, 1.25–1.85), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HR, 1.12, 95 percent CI, 1.02–1.23).

The results were consistent even when participants who developed nonhip fracture MOFs were added to the healthy controls as comparators.