Benign positional vertigo appears to strongly correlate with osteopenia and osteoporosis in both men and women, researchers in a case-control study have concluded.
Compared to controls, patients with osteopenia were twice as likely to experience positional vertigo, and those with osteoporosis were three times as likely to experience the disorder, Dr. Ji Sook Kim and colleagues wrote.
“These findings suggest a deranged calcium metabolism in idiopathic benign positional vertigo,” Dr. Kim of the Seoul National University College of Medicine, Korea, said in an interview. “Restoring normal calcium metabolism may prevent recurrences of BPPV.”
The study compared bone mineral density in 209 patients with a diagnosis of idiopathic benign positional vertigo (BPV) and 202 controls. Most (142) were female; their mean age was 60 years.
Among female patients, only 28% had normal bone mineral density, while 47% had osteopenia and 25% had osteoporosis. Among female controls, normal bone mass was found in 57%; 33% had osteopenia and 9% had osteoporosis. (Percentages do not add up to 100% due to rounding.) The differences were significant at all points measured (Neurology 2009;72:1069-76).
In male patients, 48% had normal bone mass, while 40% had osteopenia and 12% had osteoporosis. In male controls, 67% had normal bone mass, 27% had osteopenia, and 6% had osteoporosis. The differences were significant at the femur and first lumbar vertebra, but not at the other lumbar measurements.