Higher serum uric acid is associated with higher lumbar spine bone mineral density in male health-screening examinees: a cross-sectional study

Bone health has been associated with oxidative stress and antioxidants have received interest to this end. Serum uric acid (SUA), an end product of purine metabolism in humans, has recently shown antioxidant properties regarding bone health, but there are conflicting results. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between SUA levels and lumbar spine bone mineral density (BMD) in clinically apparently healthy males aged 40-60years. We performed a cross-sectional study of 6588 Korean males who completed a health-screening program from January 2011 to December 2014. Of the study participants, the mean age was 48.2 +/- 10.7years. Multiple regression analyses resulted in a significant positive association with lumbar spine BMD across SUA quintiles in a dose-response manner after adjusting for various confounding factors (p=0.013); for each 1mg/dl increase of SUA, BMD rose by 0.0054g/cm(2) (p=0.004). Stratified analyses revealed that this association between SUA and lumbar spine BMD was consistently observed across all clinically relevant subgroups. The present study demonstrated a positive association in males between SUA and lumbar spine BMD, suggesting that SUA could have a profitable effect on bone metabolism.