Spinal and forearm bone mass in relation to ageing and menopause in healthy Italian women.

Most studies concerning bone status have been performed in Nordic and Anglo-Saxon countries and few data are available on southern European populations. We performed a cross-sectional study on spine and forearm bone mass in 234 healthy Italian women and related the results to age and time since menopause. Forearm bone mass does not decline in premenopausal age, whereas, as far as the spine is concerned, a significant reduction appears 3 years before the mean age of menopause; in both cases, the occurrence of menopause accounted for an accelerated phase of bone loss. In postmenopausal women both spine and forearm bone mass show a stronger correlation with years since menopause than with age. According to a linear exponential model, the rate of spinal bone loss per year since menopause is around 4% in the first 3 years which slows down to around 2% in the 5th year; the corresponding rates of forearm bone loss are 2% and 1.3%, respectively.