Background: “Inflammaging” is a coined term that combines the processes of inflammation (within the normal range) and aging, since chronic, low-grade, systemic inflammation emerges with increasing age. Unlike high-level inflammation, with which deleterious effects on bone no longer need to be demonstrated, it is unclear whether inflammaging exerts deleterious effects on bone too.
Method: We assessed associations between inflammaging — measured via cytokine levels (high-sensitivity C- reactive protein (hs-CRP); interleukin-1β (IL-1β); interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α)) — and bone parameters (prevalent and incident fractures, bone mineral density (BMD) and trabecular bone score (TBS)) in 1390 postmenopausal women from the OsteoLaus study.
Results: Mean (±SD) age was 64.5 ± 7.6 and mean bone mass index (BMI) 25.9 ± 4.5 kg/m2. Median hs-CRP, IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α were 1.4 pg/ml, 0.57 pg/ml, 2.36 pg/ml and 4.82 pg/ml, respectively. In total, 10.50% of the participants had a prevalent, low-impact fracture; and, after 5-years of follow up, 5.91% had an incident, low-impact fracture. Mean T-score BMD was − 1.09 ± 1.53 for the spine, − 1.08 ± 1.02 for the femoral neck, and − 0.72 ± 0.96 for the total hip. Mean spine TBS was 1.320 ± 0.10. We found a positive association between hs-CRP and BMD at all sites, and between hs-CRP and the TBS, but none of these associations were significant after adjustment. We found no association between prevalent or incident fractures and hs-CRP. No association was found between IL-1β, IL6 and TNF-α and BMD, TBS or fractures.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that bone imaging and structure parameters are not associated with the low-grade cytokine levels (within the normal range) observed with inflammaging.