22% Lower Risk of Hip Fracture With Mediterranean Diet

You might say that researchers in Sweden were bringing the power to the people with their new work…the power to alter their risk of hip fracture. The researchers, who included Liisa Byberg, Ph.D. of the Department of Surgical Sciences, Orthopedics at Uppsala University, combined two Swedish studies involving 37, 903 men and 33, 403 women who had no history of heart disease or cancer. The researchers created a modified Mediterranean diet that included a significant level of fruits and vegetables, legumes and nuts, whole grains, fermented dairy products, fish, olive/rapeseed oil, a moderate alcohol intake, and a low intake of red and processed meat.

Dr. Byberg commented to OTW, “We are interested in modifiable risk factors for hip fracture. It is known that hip fracture rate varies both worldwide and within Europe and these differences in rate are not explained by other common risk factors such as longevity, climate or vitamin D status. Diet may be one explanatory and modifiable risk factor. The beneficial effects of a Mediterranean diet on cardiovascular disease has been known for some time. With cardiovascular disease also being related with risk of fracture, we wanted to see whether adherence to a Mediterranean diet was associated with a lower risk of hip fracture.”

“Those men and women who reported high consumption of food items included in the Mediterranean diet score had a 22% lower risk of hip fracture during 15 years of follow-up compared to those reporting low adherence. This corresponded to a 12-month higher median age at fracture. The results are based on an observational longitudinal study of 71, 333 Swedish men and women with a mean age of 60 years at baseline who had not had cancer of cardiovascular disease. During follow-up 3, 175 hip fractures occurred. This is the largest study thus far on this topic.”

“I find it very interesting that there is a variation in the diet in all populations and that adherence to a modified Mediterranean diet including use of rapeseed oil instead of olive oil (which is not as commonly used in Sweden) can potentially decrease the risk of hip fracture also when examined in a population living as far away from the Mediterranean as Sweden. Of course, we need to remember that the results are based on an observational study and that randomized controlled studies are needed to provide good evidence for a treatment effect although we were able to take important confounding factors such as physical activity, smoking habits, socioeconomic status, and comorbidity into account.”

“In our research group we continue to examine different aspects of diet and other modifiable risk factors such as physical activity in relation to fracture occurrence.”