ESPE Abstracts

Background: Vitamin D is a steroid hormone which contributes to the maintenance of calcium homeostasis and bone mineralization. As bone mineral accretion occurs mostly during the third trimester of pregnancy, mineral storages are deficient especially in the extremely low birth weight (ELBW <1000g) preterm infants at birth. Recent studies suggest that ELBW is a risk factor for compromised bone mineral density at adulthood, but the role of neonatal morbidity ...

Reports on preterm born young adults’ bone health give conflicting results. Lower areal bone mineral density in the preterm born population has partly been explained by their smaller adult size. Male sex has previously been reported as a risk factor for impaired bone health in preterm born adults. We performed a bone mineral density measurement of the lumbar spine and both hips with DXA in 37 preterm born young adults, of whom 22 were women and 15 men, at a mean age of 2...