Relationship between porotic changes in alveolar bone and spinal osteoporosis.

Epidemiological studies have shown that post-menopausal women who do not use an estrogen supplement have fewer teeth than those who do. We hypothesized that changes in the dentition of post-menopausal women might be due to alveolar bone alterations by estrogen deficiency. To clarify this, we analyzed the microstructural alveolar bone changes in ovariectomized monkeys and compared these with their lumbar bone mineral density. The % of baseline bone mineral density showed a significant decrease in the ovariectomized group as compared with the controls. The second-molar interradicular septa in ovariectomized monkeys showed a significantly decreased nodes number, cortices number, and an increased structural model index value. More pores were seen in the ovariectomized group at the top of the septa. This study demonstrated that, in such monkeys, estrogen deficiency led to fragility of the trabecular structure of the molar alveolar bone, and such fragility was inversely correlated with lumbar bone mineral density.