While the independent roles of vitamin D and sex hormones in skeletal health are well established, the associations of vitamin D and its metabolites to sex hormones and their indices are less investigated. In this observational study, clinical information of 189 Saudi postmenopausal women aged ≥50 years old [N = 80 with normal bone mineral density (BMD), aged 53.3 ± 7.7 years with body mass index (BMI)= 34.1kg/m2 ± 5.8, and N = 109 with low BMD (T-score -1.0 to -2.5), aged 57.0 ± 8.2 years, BMI = 32.4kg/m2 ± 6.2] was extracted from an existing capital-wide osteoporosis registry in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Data included were BMD scores, serum total 25(OH)D, sex hormones, and bone turnover markers which were measured using commercially available assays. Age- and BMI-adjusted comparisons revealed significantly higher parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels as well as significantly lower testosterone and bioavailable testosterone in the low BMD group than the normal BMD group (p-values 0.04, 0.02, and 0.03, respectively). Stepwise linear regression showed that circulating testosterone levels accounted for 9.7% and 8.9% of the variances perceived in bioavailable 25(OH)D and free 25(OH)D, respectively (p < 0.01), independent of other sex hormones, sex hormone indices, and bone turnover markers. Our study suggests that androgens are significantly associated with non-conventional vitamin D metabolites and these associations may have clinical relevance in assessing risk for low BMD and osteoporosis in Arab postmenopausal women.
Keywords: Saudi postmenopausal women; osteopenia; osteoporosis; vitamin D metabolites.