Determinants of bone mineral density through quantitative ultrasound screening of healthy children visiting ambulatory paediatric clinics

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the determinants of bone mineral density through screening healthy children using a non-invasive quantitative ultrasound measurement device. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional study carried out at King AbdulAziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. between May 2018 and January 2019 through interviewing, examining, and screening healthy children visiting general paediatric. Total sample size encompassed 450 children. The inclusion criteria were healthy children between the ages of 2 and 20 years. Exclusion criteria were previous pathological fractures, chronic medical diseases, or long-term medications. Data entry and analysis was conducted using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 24 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA). Chi-square tests were used to determine the association between categorical variables, with calculated p<0.05 considered significant. With one-way Anova testing to study the relationship between categorical variables and continuous variables. RESULTS: A significant association with bone mineral density (BMD) was found during first 2 years with height (p=0.015), vitamin D supplementation (p=0.03), and breastfeeding (p=0.025). A directly proportional relationship with BMD was found with pubertal status, physical activity, diet, sun exposure, and calcium supplement intake. CONCLUSION: This is a novel study in the investigation of the dietary, lifestyle and demographic determinants of bone mineral density in the healthy middle-eastern child otherwise unaffected by chronic medical or metabolic disease or exposed to long term medications that could have affected bone metabolism.