GENETIC DETERMINATION OF BONE-DENSITY

Osteoporosis is a very common disease that concerns every forth postme nopausal white woman. The loss of bone density leads to fractures, mai nly to fractures of the neck of the femur. A herediterian geneses of t he ideopathic osteoporosis seems to be sure. The vitamin D receptor (V DR) has an important role for the mineralisation of the bones. His all elic variants can be used for a prediction of bone density. These alle les are correlated with endonuclease restriction areas for Bsm-1, Apa- 1 and Taq-1. Amoung these Bsm-1 has the highest incidence for predicti on. In this study the allelic variants of the VDR gene correlated with the bone density of the lumbar spine (p < 0.009).