Dairy food intake is not associated with spinal trabecular bone score in men and women: the Framingham Osteoporosis Study

BACKGROUND: Previous studies reported that dairy foods are associated with higher areal bone mineral density (BMD) in older adults. However, data on bone texture are lacking. We determined the association of dairy food intake (milk, yogurt, cheese, milk + yogurt and milk + yogurt + cheese) with spinal trabecular bone score (TBS). METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, a validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire was used to assess dairy food intake (servings/wk). TBS, an analysis of bone texture, was calculated from dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans. Sex-specific multivariable linear regression was used to estimate the association of dairy food intake (energy adjusted via residual methods) with each bone measure adjusting for covariates. RESULTS: Mean age of 4,740 participants was 49 (SD: 13) years and mean milk + yogurt + cheese intake was 10.1 (SD: 8.4) servings/week in men and 10.9 (SD: 8.0) servings/week in women. There were no associations between dairy food intake and spinal TBS in adjusted models. CONCLUSIONS: In this cohort of primarily healthy adults, dairy intake was not associated with bone texture.