BIOCHEMICAL MARKERS OF NUTRITION IN TYPE-I AND TYPE-II OSTEOPOROSIS

We studied nutritional deficits, using as markers the levels of transf errin, retinol-binding protein, and prealbumin, in 20 women with osteo porotic hip fractures (type II), 40 women with vertebral fractures (ty pe I), and two groups of age-matched control subjects. The concentrati ons of all three nutritional markers were lower in the two groups of p atients than in their matched controls, and in type-I as compared with type-II osteoporosis. In the osteoporotic patients, simple linear reg ression showed a significant correlation between the variables which w e studied (r(2) ranged from 0.5 to 0.7; p < 0.001), the best correlati on being between prealbumin and retinol-binding protein in type-II ost eoporosis, Our results suggest that there is a more marked nutritional deficit in type-II than in type-I osteoporosis.