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Original Research Communications |
1 From the Division of Clinical Biochemistry, Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science, and the Department of Medicine, Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide, Australia.
2 Reprints not available. Address correspondence to AG Need, Division of Clinical Biochemistry, Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science, Frome Road, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia. E-mail: allan.need{at}imvs.sa.gov.au.
| ABSTRACT |
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Objective: Our objective was to study the relations between serum PTH, serum vitamin D metabolites, and other calcium-related variables in postmenopausal women.
Design: This was a cross-sectional study of 496 postmenopausal women without vertebral fractures attending our menopausal osteoporosis clinics.
Results: PTH was significantly positively related to age and serum 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D [1,25(OH)2D] and inversely related to 25(OH)D and plasma ionized calcium. There was a step-like increase in PTH as serum 25(OH)D fell below 40 nmol/L. In women with 25(OH)D concentrations >40 nmol/L, 1,25(OH)2D was positively related to 25(OH)D; in women with 25(OH)D concentrations
40 nmol/L, the relation was the inverse. In women with 25(OH)D concentrations
40 nmol/L, 1,25(OH)2D was most closely related to PTH; in women with 25(OH)D concentrations >40 nmol/L, 1,25(OH)2D was most closely (inversely) related to plasma creatinine. Therefore, with serum 25(OH)D concentrations increasingly <40 nmol/L, serum 1,25(OH)2D becomes critically dependent on rising concentrations of PTH.
Conclusion: The data suggest that aging women should maintain 25(OH)D concentrations >40 nmol/L (which is the lower limit of our normal range for healthy young subjects) for optimal bone health.
Key Words: Aging 25-hydroxyvitamin D 25(OH)D 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D 1,25(OH)2D parathyroid hormone postmenopausal women
| INTRODUCTION |
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Although serum PTH is known to rise with age (8), the exact relation between this rise and the concomitant age-related decrease in 25(OH)D concentrations is not clear. More importantly, the serum concentration of 25(OH)D required for optimal bone health is unknown. To shed more light on these issues, we studied the interrelations between age and serum concentrations of PTH, 25(OH)D, and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D [1,25(OH)2D] in 496 healthy postmenopausal women.
| SUBJECTS AND METHODS |
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Physical examination included measurement of height, of weight, and of skinfold thickness with Harpenden calipers (British Indicators Ltd, St Albans, United Kingdom) as the mean of 3 sites on the back of each hand (9). Investigations then followed a standard protocol. All patients fasted overnight, voided on waking, and attended the laboratory between 0900 and 1000 for venipuncture and to provide a urine sample. They then drank 5 µCi of 45Ca in 250 mL water with 20 mg Ca as a carrier. A single blood sample was collected exactly 1 h later. We measured plasma calcium, albumin, globulins, bicarbonate, and anion gap by standard methods; serum 25(OH)D by competitive protein binding (10); 1,25(OH)2D by HPLC and radioimmunoassay (11); and intact PTH by immunometric assay (DPC, Los Angeles). Plasma ionized calcium (Ca2+) was calculated by an iterative computer program (12). The hourly fractional rate of calcium absorption was calculated from the radioactivity in the blood collected 1 h after the dose of 45Ca (13).
The relations between PTH and other variables were examined by one-way analysis of variance and simple and multiple linear regression by using MINITAB (release 9.2; Minitab Inc, State College, PA). Means were compared by Student's t test for unpaired samples.
| RESULTS |
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40 nmol/L than in those with 25(OH)D concentrations >40 nmol/L (Figure 1
± SE) in the women with 25(OH)D concentrations >40 nmol/L (n = 386) and 5.6 ± 0.04 pmol/L in the women with 25(OH)D concentrations
40 nmol/L (n = 111) (P < 0.001). Similarly, when the women were grouped by 0.05-mmol/L steps of ionized calcium, the negative correlation with PTH was essentially due to higher PTH concentrations in women with ionized calcium concentrations <1.20 mmol/L (Figure 2
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40 nmol/L (Figure 3
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and >40 nmol/L], but there was no significant correlation between radiocalcium absorption and 25(OH)D. However, when 1,25(OH)2D was regressed on PTH in univariate fashion in the 2 subsets, both the intercepts and the regression slopes differed significantly (Figure 4
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40 nmol/L, 1,25(OH)2D was significantly related only to PTH (Table 6
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| DISCUSSION |
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-hydroxylase (15), can overcome the lack of substrate [25(OH)D]. The signal for increased PTH secretion as serum 25(OH)D falls is probably a decrease in plasma ionized calcium. We showed in this set of patients that PTH concentrations were higher in women with plasma ionized calcium concentrations <1.20 mmol/L than in those with plasma ionized calcium concentrations
1.20 mmol/L (Figure 2
A serum 25(OH)D concentration of 40 nmol/L (which is the lower limit of our reference range) appears to represent a critical point in vitamin D metabolism at which vitamin D deficiency begins to unduly stress normal calcium homeostasis. The higher 1,25(OH)2D concentrations with 25(OH)D concentrations increasingly <40 nmol/L are achieved by an increase in PTH of 10% at 25(OH)D concentrations between 30 and 40 nmol/L and of 30% at 25(OH)D concentrations <30 nmol/L. Any impairment of 1,25(OH)2D production would presumably accentuate the effect of vitamin D deficiency on serum PTH below this point. 1,25(OH)2D production is reported to be impaired in the elderly (17) but our data do not show this. If impaired production does occur, it may be due either to the decrease in 25(OH)D with age or to diminishing renal function; in our data, serum 1,25(OH)2D was inversely related to plasma creatinine (Table 2
).
Our data suggest that PTH becomes increasingly important in maintaining plasma 1,25(OH)2D concentrations as serum 25(OH)D falls below 40 nmol/L. Below this concentration, PTH appears to be a more significant determinant of 1,25(OH)2D than it is above this concentration, when other factors, such as serum 25(OH)D, become more important (Table 5
).
We also confirmed, in larger numbers than in our earlier study (9), that 25(OH)D concentrations are related to average daily hours of sunlight, skinfold thickness, BMI, and age, with age being the least significant determinant. The most significant determinant of serum 25(OH)D was the average daily hours of sunlight available 2 mo before the blood sample was drawn. Serum 25(OH)D was also inversely related to BMI. Because a high BMI is in general associated with obesity, we assumed previously that subjects with high fat mass also have a larger pool into which 25(OH)D is distributed and therefore a lower serum 25(OH)D concentration (9). However, in the current data set the inverse relation between 25(OH)D and BMI was due to a positive correlation between 25(OH)D and height (r = 0.14, P = 0.002) rather than an inverse correlation between 25(OH)D and body weight (r = 0.04, P = 0.365). At present, there is no simple explanation for this.
There is currently no consensus on what represents an optimal serum 25(OH)D concentration. Serum concentrations are known to be low in persons with hip fracture (2) and seasonal variation in serum 25(OH)D is associated with seasonal variation in hip fracture rates (18). Vitamin D taken with calcium reduces PTH and markers of bone resorption and also reduces fracture rates in nursing home residents (7).
A 25(OH)D concentration <30 nmol/L has been suggested by some authors to represent vitamin D deficiency (3, 19), but others have suggested concentrations <37.5 nmol/L (20), 62 nmol/L (21), 77 nmol/L (22), or even 120 nmol/L (23) as being deleterious to bone, all on the basis of changes in PTH. Krall et al (24) showed seasonal changes in serum PTH when serum 25(OH)D was
63 mmol/L, Dawson-Hughes et al (25) showed that bone loss was less in women with serum 25(OH)D concentrations of 100 nmol/L than in women with concentrations of 66 nmol/L, and Malabanan et al (26) showed that raising 25(OH)D from 43 to 88 nmol/L caused a 22% decrease in PTH. Our data showed a clear change in the relation between 1,25(OH)2D and 25(OH)D (from positive to negative) when we compared women with 25(OH)D concentrations >40 nmol/L with women with concentrations
40 nmol/L. PTH was also significantly higher in those subjects with 25(OH)D concentrations
40 nmol/L than in those with 25(OH)D concentrations above this. The cutoff of 40 nmol/L also happens to be the lower end of the reference range for 25(OH)D in Adelaide.
Ours is the first study to show the inverse relation between 1,25(OH)2D and 25(OH)D when 25(OH)D concentrations are <40 nmol/L. The data suggest that the skin thinning that occurs with age lowers serum 25(OH)D, which presumably could be overcome by greater sunlight exposure. Such a simple change in lifestyle might help to reduce secondary hyperparathyroidism in the elderly and help stem the rising tide of hip fractures predicted as the world's population ages (27). Alternatively, a small dose of oral vitamin D given regularly could have the same effect.
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-hydroxylase. In: Feldman D, Glorieux FH, Pike MC, eds. Vitamin D. New York: Academic Press, 1997:5768.
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