Among adults aged 65 years and over, women were 4.4 times as likely as men to have osteoporosis, and Mexican Americans were 2.4 times more likely than were blacks to have osteoporosis from 2005 to 2010, the National Center for Health Statistics reported.
So where does leave those who are both women and Mexican American?
First, a little background: The age-adjusted prevalence of osteoporosis measured at either the lumbar spine or femur neck among adults aged 65 years and over was 24.8% for women and 5.6% for men, for an overall prevalence of 16.2%. Adults aged 65-79 years had an unadjusted prevalence of 12.8%, compared with 25.7% for those aged 80 years and over, according to data from the 2005-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Age-adjusted prevalence over that time period for Mexican Americans aged 65 years and older was 24.9%, compared with 15.7% for non-Hispanic whites and 10.3% for non-Hispanic blacks.
Mexican American women, who find themselves at the intersection of these two trends, had an adjusted osteoporosis rate of 36.8%, the NCHS reported.
Osteoporosis was defined as a bone mineral density value that was more than 2.5 standard deviations below the mean value for young, non-Hispanic white females.
