Does socio-economic status affect osteoporosis? – 16/07/2018

European researchers have found a link between being married and making a good living and a lower risk of fractures beyond the age of fifty.

A team from Southampton University, as well as researchers from the Universities of Oxford, Bristol, and Aalborg and South Denmark sought to see whether socio-economic status, as measured by salary and marital status, affected on the risk of fracture of the hip, wrist or humerus in people aged 50 and over

Using Danish national medical data, scientists collected information on 189,838 patients who suffered fractures in comparing them to 189,838 other patients of the same ages and gender who had not had bone fractures.

Data includes included information on the marital status of subjects (married or unmarried, divorced, widowed or single), their area of ​​residence (rural, intermediate or urban) and their wages

Scientists also took into account their consumption

The results showed that patients who were better off were significantly less likely to experience one of the three fractures than those who had an average salary.

, married people also had a much lower risk of these three types of bone fractures than single persons.

Professor Nicholas Harvey, in charge of this study commented: "There are more than 500,000 fractured bones due to osteoporosis every year in the UK for a cost of £ 4.4 billion with immense impact on health and survival. "

" We do not know exactly how marriage can prot the risk of fracture, but studies show that it protects against certain health problems, probably due to many factors related to physical and mental health, safety and economic status, "added the director of study

These results have been relayed by the journal Osteoporosis International.