NAFLD may reduce risk of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes

China: In postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes mellitus, complicated nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is associated with abnormal lipid metabolism, poor blood sugar control, weight gain, and increased uric acid levels, a recent study has stated. 

The study, published in, Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy, further found that the NAFLD group had higher total hip and femoral neck bone mineral density (BMD) than the non-NAFLD group. This indicates that NAFLD in postmenopausal women with T2DM may reduce osteoporosis risk. 

In the study, Tian-Rong Pan, The Second Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, People's Republic of China, and colleagues set out to determine the risk factors for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and the correlation with BMD in different areas of the body.

For this purpose, the researchers enrolled a total of 434 postmenopausal women with T2DM and categorized them on the basis of color Doppler ultrasound of the liver as 198 patients in the NAFLD group and 236 patients in the non-NAFLD group. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry was used for measuring the lumbar spine, femoral neck, and total hip BMD.