Abstract
This study was designed to investigate the effects of dietary calcium. serum estrogen level and physical activity on the bone status of 116 healthy elderly women living in urban area. Current calcium intake was assessed by convenient method(refered to as Ca intake) and calcium containing food frequency method(refered to as Ca index) Daily activity record was used for the estimation of physical activity level, and serum estrogen level was measured from fasting blood of subjects. The rate of bone resorption was evaluated by the determination of hydroxyproline(Hpr) in fasting urine with correction for creatinine excretion. The results of this study are summarized as follows : 1) Average daily Ca intake of subjects was 621.4$\pm$155.8mg, which is above the Korean recommended dietary allowances. However 44.8% of the subjects consumed Ca below RDA level. Ca index score was significantly correlated with the bone status(P<0.05), Ca intake did not show significant correlation with the bone status although a positive trend of influence was evident. 2) Average serum estrogen level of subjects was 18.7$\pm$9.8pg Contrary to our anticipation. estrogen level did not show any significant relation to age and bone status. 3) Daily physical activity was classified into four categories by activity intensity : sedentary. moderate, active and severe. The average physical activity of subjects belong to moderate level. and the bone status was significantly related to the physical activity(P<0.01) 4) Among other influential factors such as age, pocket-money. family type. drinking, smoking and BMI, there was a significant difference between bone status and BMI(P<0.05). 5) Multiple regression analysis of variables showed that physical activity has greater effect than other variables when the entire subjects were taken into account. However. eliminating the subjects whose bone status rated as excellent(Hpr/cr<0.009), Ca index showed higher correlation than physical activity. These results have demonstrated that dietary calcium intake is the primary important factor for keeping good bone health and that bone status of subjects with a sufficient calcium intake is affected by various factors such as physical activity, age, smoking. BMI and others.
