Paper
Friday, July 23, 2004
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Friday, July 23, 2004
3:00 PM - 3:30 PM
This presentation is part of : Posters II
Bone Density of Young Women With Persistent Asthma
Nancy J. Pogue, PhD, RN, Medical-Surgical Nursing, UIC College of Nursing at Urbana, Urbana, IL, USA, Ellen M. Evans, PhD, Kinesiology Department, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA, and Victoria Zachariadou, BS, Kinesiology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.

All women are at an increased risk for loss of bone mineral density (BMD) after menopause, but asthmatic women have additional risks related to their use of corticosteroids, primarily inhaled, for asthma management and their lower levels of physical activity. It is not clear whether young women who consistently use inhaled corticosteroids to manage their asthma prior to skeletal maturity reach their predicted peak bone mass, or if they lose bone mass later at a faster rate than healthy, non-asthmatic women. The objective of an ongoing cross-sectional study is to compare the BMD of 20 asthmatic women who have not reached skeletal maturity to that of a matched group of 20 healthy women and to normative standards. Subjects are 18 to 30 years of age, eumenorrheic volunteers who reside in a midwestern U.S. university city, are recreationally active and have no eating disorders or physical disability that would interfere with normal accretion of bone mass. Asthmatic women have consistently used inhaled corticosteroids for the past 12+ months but have not used systemic corticosteroids in the past three months and have no other chronic diseases. Healthy control women will be matched by age (+/- 2 years), body mass index (BMI +/- 2) and activity level, and will not have used systemic corticosteroids or have a chronic disease. Methods include measurement of total body, lumbar spine and proximal hip BMD by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) with a Hologic QDR 4500A (software version 11.2) bone densitometer (Bedford, Massachusetts) and questionnaires: Historical Physical Activity Questionnaire modified to reflect past high-impact exercise; Paffenbarger Physical Activity Index for current physical activity; Block Nutritional Questionnaire for calcium intake; Eating Disorders Inventory; and the Medical and Health History Questionnaire for assessment of asthma and bone related data. Currently available data will be presented at the conference.

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Back to 15th International Nursing Research Congress
Sigma Theta Tau International
July 22-24, 2004