DASH diet improves bone health in postmenopausal women

The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) is associated with better bone outcomes than the Alternative Health Eating Index (AHEI-2010) or the Mediterranean Diet Score (MeDS) in postmenopausal women not taking oestrogen, but all dietary quality indices promote bone health, according to a study.

“Methodological differences across scores suggest that a bone-specific index that builds on existing indices and that can be used to address dietary differences across cultural and ethnic minority populations should be considered,” the investigators said.

Participants (mean age, 59.9 years; 71 percent female) from the Boston Puerto Rican Osteoporosis Study with complete bone and dietary data were included. Indices were calculated from validated food frequency data. Dual X-ray absorptiometry was used to measure bone mineral density (BMD).

The investigators assessed the associations between dietary indices (z-scores) and their individual components with BMD and osteoporosis using ANCOVA and logistic regression, respectively. At the lumbar spine and femoral neck, stratified by male, pre- and postmenopausal women.

All dietary indices correlated with a reduced risk of osteoporosis (odds ratio, 0.54–0.75), but DASH (score, 11–38) showed better results, being associated with higher trochanter (0.026±0.006 g/cm²; p<0.001), femoral neck (0.022±0.006 g/cm²; p<0.001), total hip (0.029±0.006 g/cm²; p<0.001), and lumbar spine BMD (0.025±0.007 g/cm²; p=0.001) among postmenopausal women not on oestrogen.

AHEI (score, 25–86) also correlated with spine and all hip sites (p<0.02), while MeDS (0–9) was associated only with total hip (p=0.01) and trochanter BMD (p=0.007) in postmenopausal women.

On the other hand, results for men or premenopausal women did not reach statistical significance.