preview

Oestrogen Deficiency Essay

Good Essays

Oestrogen deficiency caused by ovariectomy or drug therapy, such as gonadotropin-releasing hormone-agonist therapy, results in a rapid increase in the levels of markers of bone turnover (98). Similarly, the menopause is marked by an increase in levels of markers. The magnitude of the increase varies for the different markers, probably reflecting their specificity for bone or differences in their metabolism in low and high turnover states. The markers probably start to increase in the peri-menopausal period before menstruation has ceased. Premenopausal women aged >40 years have higher levels of C-terminal crosslinked telopeptides (CTX) and osteocalcin than younger women (99), which may be weakly associated with lower BMD. In women with …show more content…

It has been shown that NTX and CTX and markers of bone formation remain elevated in women for 40 years after the menopause (106). Markers of bone resorption are significantly elevated in post-menopausal women with osteoporosis as compared with normal post-menopausal women, but the markers of bone formation are much less elevated and may indeed be decreased (107,108). This pattern of changes suggests that an extent of imbalance of bone resorption and bone formation occurs in osteoporosis. A mean increase of 40% has been found in the level of total deoxy pyridinoline in a group of sixty-three women with post-menopausal osteoporosis compared with a group of sixty-seven normal postmenopausal women (109). However, there was a considerable overlap of individual levels in the two groups. The heterogeneity of bone resorption in the group with osteoporosis probably indicates different causes of the disease or may represent differences in the stage observed in the individuals in the study. Single measurements of total and free cross-links are unlikely to be useful in identifying osteoporosis in an individual post-menopausal woman. However, a recent study suggests that osteocalcin can discriminate between normal post-menopausal women, women with osteopenia and women with osteoporosis, as defined by the WHO criteria (110). BMD in the post-menopausal woman is determined by peak bone mass and the amount of bone

Get Access