Background
Osteoporosis is a very common metabolic bone disease with a strong genetic component. Elucidation of genetic component for osteoporosis is an important step in the development of novel and safe therapeutic strategies for preventing and treating osteoporosis. Recently, we have reported a significant association between bone mineral density (BMD) and leptin receptor (LEPR) gene polymorphism in young men. Therefore, to investigate that such correlation could also exist in women, we examined 100 young women aged 20~35 years and 265 untreated postmenopausal women aged 40~75 years.
Methods
The genotypes of LEPR were determined by using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method. All subjects were requested to fill out the questionnaires asking the amount of calcium intake, age of menarche, duration of menopause, smoking and exercise status. We checked BMD in spine and femoral neck with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). The subjects were grouped into two according to the presence or absence of Gln allele in LEPR Gln223Arg polymorphism. Using multiple linear regression analysis, we compared the BMD of spine and femoral neck in two groups.
Results
In contrast to our previous study with young men, we did not observe statistically significant difference in BMD at any sites between two groups of women irrespective of menstrual states suggesting that LEPR gene does not have a significant impact on female BMD.
Conclusion
There is sexual dimorphism in the contribution of LEPR gene Gln223Arg polymorphism to BMD.
