Boron intake, osteocalcin polymorphism and serum level in postmenopausal osteoporosis

The relationship between daily boron intake and osteocalcin-mediated osteoporosis was studied in boron-exposed postmenopausal women. It is known that boron and osteocalcin are important in bone metabolism, however the effect of boron in bone metabolism has not been fully discovered. The study was performed on 53 postmenopausal women aged 55-60 living in parts of Balikesir, Turkey, where the subjects are naturally exposed to high (≥1 mg/L) or low (<1 mg/L) boron concentration in drinking water. 24-h urine samples were collected from all participants and creatinine clearance was detected. Boron intake levels of the subjects whose clearance levels were between 80-124 mL/min were measured by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) in urine samples. Serum osteocalcin levels of the subjects were measured by osteocalcin enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit. Osteocalcin polymorphism rs1800247 was detected using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Serum osteocalcin levels in boron-exposed postmenopausal women were significantly higher than that of control group (P ≤ 0.05) and the correlation between the serum osteocalcin level and rs1800247 polymorphism was not significant in both groups (P > 0.05). The differences in the distribution of osteocalcin genotypes and alleles in postmenopausal women were not significant between the boron exposed and the control groups (P > 0.05). Serum osteocalcin level in the CC genotype was significantly higher compared to the TC genotype in boron-exposed group (P ≤ 0.05). Our study suggests that daily boron intake of 1 mg/L may affect bone metabolism in postmenopausal women positively.