[Evolution of bone mass in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus].
OBJECTIVE
There is some controversy over bone mineral density (BMD) in children and teenagers with type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM1). We evaluated BMD by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and correlated it with anthropometric, biochemical and hormonal parameters related to bone metabolism.


METHODS
Sixty-six patients with DM1 (26 males and 40 females) aged between 3 and 17 years, and 327 controls with a similar age were studied.


RESULTS
The BMD of all diabetic patients was not different from that of the controls. However, the subgroup of older males (between 15 and 17 years) had a significantly inferior BMD than controls of the same age: mean (standard deviation), 0.888 (0.13) versus 0.994 (0.11) (p = 0.027). BMD was inferior to -1 standard deviation (Z-score) in 21.2% of diabetic children. All the biochemical and hormonal parameters were within the normality rank. There was a negative correlation between the evolution time of the disease and the levels of 25-hydroxycholecalciferol (r = -0.345; p = 0.006). We did not observe any correlation between BMD and the remaining studied parameters.


CONCLUSIONS
These results confirm that initially children and adolescents with non-complicated DM1 have no alteration of the bone mass. Yet the BMD physiological increase is smaller in the diabetic population than in controls during the adolescence period, which may cause a lower peak of bone mass in these patients.
Vázquez Gámez
María Angeles
MA
Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital Universitario Virgen Macarena, Sevilla, España. avazquezc@terra.es
Marín Pérez
Juana María
JM
Montoya García
María José
MJ
Moruno García
Rosa María
RM
Argüelles Martín
Federico
F
Pérez Cano
Ramón
R
D000293:Adolescent; D000886:Anthropometry; D015519:Bone Density / Q000502:physiology; D016723:Bone Remodeling; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003922:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 / Q000097:blood / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006887:Hydroxycholecalciferols / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male
D006887:Hydroxycholecalciferols