A systematic review of the association between insulin resistance surrogate indices and bone mineral density.

Abstract

Background: The relationship of insulin resistance with bone mineral density (BMD) remains unclear, offering an opportunity for novel indices to shed light on the matter. The aim of this review was to evaluate the association between surrogate indices of insulin resistance and BMD.

Methods: A systematic review was conducted to evaluate observational studies that examined the relationship between insulin resistance surrogate indices and BMD in adults. Databases including PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Embase were searched. Quality assessment was performed using Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal tools.

Results: This systematic review included 27 cohorts and cross-sectional studies with 71,525 participants to assess the potential link between insulin resistance surrogate indices like HOMA-IR, HOMA-β, TyG, TyG-BMI, TyG-WtHR, and TyG-WC, along with METS-IR, and VAI, and BMD at various sites. There seems to be no link between BMD and the HOMA index, despite being extensively studied in various studies (adjusted β ranging from -0.49 to 0.103). Most literature suggests that a higher TyG index is associated with decreased BMD levels (adjusted β ranging from -0.085 to 0.0124). Despite limited evidence, other insulin resistance indices such as VAI (adjusted β ranging from 0.007 to 0.016), TyG-BMI (adjusted β ranging from 0.002 to 0.415), METS-IR (adjusted β ranging from 0.005 to 0.060), TyG-WtHR (β = 0.012) and TyG-WC (β = 0.0001) have shown a positive association with BMD in a few studies.

Conclusion: This systematic review emphasizes the intricate connection between insulin resistance and BMD. The lack of ability to perform a meta-analysis and the dependence on cross-sectional studies hinder the robustness of the findings, hence necessitating well-designed longitudinal studies.

Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier CRD42024512770.