Incidence of Osteoporosis in Elderly Whites and Elderly Negroes

Abstract

X-ray examinations were made of the spines of 100 Negroes over 65 years of age. None had had back pain or injury or a metabolic disorder associated with osteoporosis. There was no history of prolonged bed rest or premature menopause. Twelve subjects showed compression fractures due to osteoporosis, in comparison with an incidence of 24% in two series of white patients. Review of 222 hip fractures in a homogeneous economic and geographic population revealed the prevalence to be 5.6 times greater in the white than in the Negro men, and 3 times greater in the white than in the Negro women. Despite differences in socioeconomic and geographic factors in the three series, the study, together with the hip-fracture data, suggests that osteoporosis is less prevalent in Negroes than in whites.