Men's Osteoporosis Support Group
Metabolic syndrome and bone mineral density
Calcif Tissue Int. 2010 Mar 31. [Epub ahead of print]. Negative Association between Metabolic Syndrome and Bone Mineral Density in Koreans, Especially in Men. Kim HY and others. PMID: 20354685. This is a Korean study of men and women with metabolic syndrome (MS). MS is commonly associated with heart disease and might have common risk factors for osteoporosis, thus the purpose of this study. It involved 1,780 men aged 40 or older and 1,108 postmenopausal women. They used two separate criteria to define MS, but got similar results no matter which they used. The results showed, "After multivariate adjustment, femoral neck BMD was significantly lower in subjects with MS regardless of diagnostic criteria. BMD decreased as the number of MS components increased (P < 0.001 for trends in both sexes). Among MS components, waist circumference was the most important factor in this negative association." They also found that waist circumference and fat mass were negatively associated with BMD (bone mineral density) and lean mass was positively associated with BMD in men.
Editor's comments. Since excess waistline fat is the first factor mentioned at the sites I looked at for MS, it would appear that losing that extra fat and getting down to more of a lean body mass would be an ideal way to treat or prevent MS. Exercise is the second most commonly mentioned item, which often goes along with weight loss programs. Since the consequences of the syndrome include heart disease, diabetes, and now, the tendency toward osteoporosis, that should be plenty of reasons to get in shape.
One helpful aid for weight loss that I suggest is to use CRONoMeter, which is a free download for Windows, Mac OS X or Linux. There is a simple formula for weight control: calories eaten minus calories burned = weight gained/loss per meal or per day, etc. It isn't the weight of the food or the portion size, it is the total calories that counts. Below is a screen shot of CRONoMeter with several one pound (453.6 g) portions of food selected. Notice that the vegetables are only 100-150 calories per pound, fruits are 150-250 and complex carbohydrates like potatoes or rice are about 500 calories per pound or fewer. But fats and oils are 3,000-4,000 calories per pound and walnuts are almost 3,000 calories per pound.
I
totaled up all the calories in the first six items, spinach
through baked potato, and it is 1,596. Another way to think of
this is that you could eat two pounds each of the first six items,
twelve total pounds of food, to roughly equal one pound of
walnuts, or about three-quarters of a pound of any type of oil.
And, at 120 calories per tablespoon, one tablespoon of olive oil
has more calories than a pound of spinach.
So try the CRONoMeter by adding in the foods you eat each day to see how many calories you are eating and where you can cut back by eating fewer of the high-calorie foods and more of the low-calorie ones. Also use it to analyze the nutrients in the food. In the example above, if I click on the vitamins or minerals tabs, all the first six items have plenty of each. However, the sugar and oils have little to none. Basically they are empty calories with no nutrients, just energy. The walnuts have many more nutrients than the fats and oils, so they might be a better choice if you want some fat-containing foods. But one ounce has 185.4 calories, so their calories add up fast.
CRONoMeter takes some effort but it should be worth it to avoid the complications of metabolic syndrome.