New information about bone loss during menopause – better bones
Are you at risk of losing up to 20% of your bone in the years surrounding menopause? Women with accelerated bone loss – dubbed ‘fast losers’ in a new study – are at greater risk of developing osteoporosis and weaker bones than the average woman. The average woman loses only 8-10% of her bone mass during the three years surrounding menopause.
This new research shows there’s an easy way to find out if you’re a “quick loser” of bot so you can take action to stop it.
Find out if you are a “quick loser” of bones
Researchers focused on using the N-telopeptide crosslinks test – a urine test – to help identify women most at risk for greater and faster bone loss. When you lose bone, fragments of certain bone proteins appear in the urine; these are called N-telopeptides (NTx). A woman with more NTx protein fragments in her urine is likely to undergo bone loss more quickly and is thus at greater risk of excessive bone loss during menopause.
In the study, researchers looked at bone loss levels of NTx in about 500 early postmenopausal women, who were within 1 to 2 years of their last menstrual period. They found the following:
- The higher the NTx level in the urine, the faster the bone loss during menopause. This makes sense: a higher rate of bone breakdown would likely translate into greater bone loss.
- A urine NTx level above 65 nM BCE/mM Cr appeared to identify rapid bone losers reasonably well. To put this in context, the average premenopausal NTx level is 36 nM BCE/mM Cr, and I have generally found that postmenopausal women with a 50 NTx level lose ½ to 1% of bone mass per year.
- The association between early postmenopausal NTx and rate of bone loss was stronger at the spine than at the hip. This again makes sense because the spine is metabolically active trabecular bone, which typically loses mass years earlier than the hip.
- Furthermore, retrospectively, it was found that high urinary NTx in perimenopause was also associated with a higher rate of bone loss during the transition to menopause.
Bone loss in menopause is not evenly distributed over the ten-year menopause period (five years before a woman’s last menstrual period and five years afterward). Most bone loss occurs over a three-year period, starting 1 year before a woman’s last menstrual period and ending 2 years after her last menstrual period – known as ‘transmenopause’.
What does this research mean for you?
If you notice symptoms of perimenopause such as irregular periods and hot flashes, or if you have recently (within a few years) gone through menopause, a simple test of your NTx level in urine can help you identify a tendency toward excessive bone loss .
If you are experiencing excessive bone loss, you can take steps to find out why and correct the situation. When I work with individual clients, this is exactly the type of work I do with them.
More information about the simple urine test can be found in my short video and accompanying manual. You can also order this test online via our online request system with our laboratory partner Evexia.
And since you can’t really know when the year before your last period will occur until you actually have your last period, it’s a good idea to get started on a vigorous Better Bones program right away at the first signs of menstruation. perimenopause.
Reference:
Shieh A, et al. Urinary N-telopeptide and rate of bone loss during the transition from menopause to early post-menopause. J Bone Miner Res. 2016;31(11):2057-2064.
I am Dr. Susan E. Brown. I am a clinical nutritionist, medical anthropologist, writer and motivational coach speaker. Learn my proven 6-step natural approach to bone health in my online courses.
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