Specificallly, higher scores on the DII correlated with an almost 50 percent higher risk of hip fracture in white women younger than 63 years old. By contrast, women with the least inflammatory diets lost less bone density during the 6-year period than their high DII counterparts, even though they had overall lower bone mass when they enrolled in the study.
As the authors note, these findings suggest that a high-quality, anti-inflammatory diet - which is typically rich in fruit, vegetables, fish, whole grains, and nuts - may be especially important for younger white women.
"[Our study] suggests that as women age, healthy diets are impacting their bones. I think this gives us yet another reason to support the recommendations for a healthy diet in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans."
Tonya Orchard
Rebecca Jackson, the study's senior author and director of Ohio State's Center for Clinical and Translational Science, adds that their findings confirm previous studies, which have shown inflammatory factors to increase osteoporosis risk.
"By looking at the full diet rather than individual nutrients, these data provide a foundation for studying how components of the diet might interact to provide benefit and better inform women's health and lifestyle choices," Jackson says.
However, it is worth noting that the study did not associate a more inflammatory diet with a higher risk of fracture overall. On the contrary, lower-arm and total fracture risk were found to be slightly lower among women with higher DII scores.
Although the study was observational and could not establish causality, a possible explanation ventured by the authors is that women with lower inflammatory diets may exercise more and have a higher risk of falls as a consequence.