Red and white blood cell counts are associated with bone marrow adipose tissue, bone mineral density, and bone microarchitecture in premenopausal women

Polineni, Sai; Resulaj, Megi; Faje, Alexander T.; Meenaghan, Erinne; Bredella, Miriam A.; Bouxsein, Mary; Lee, Hang; MacDougald, Ormond A.; Klibanski, Anne; Fazeli, Pouneh K.

Affiliations

¹Neuroendocrine Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

²Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA,

³Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

⁴Center for Advanced Orthopaedic Studies, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA

⁵Biostatistics Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

⁶Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

⁷Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Abstract and keywords

Bone marrow adipose tissue (BMAT) resides within the bone marrow microenvironment where its function remains poorly understood. BMAT is elevated in anorexia nervosa, a disease model of chronic starvation, despite depletion of other fat depots. In addition to BMAT, the marrow microenvironment also consists of osteoblast and hematopoietic progenitors. BMAT is inversely associated with bone mineral density (BMD) in multiple populations including women with anorexia nervosa, and regulates hematopoiesis in animal models. We hypothesized that BMAT would be associated with circulating populations of hematopoietic cells (red and white blood cells) in humans and performed a post hoc analysis of two studies—a cross‐sectional study and a longitudinal study—to investigate this hypothesis. We studied 89 premenopausal women cross‐sectionally (median age [interquartile range], 27 [24.5, 31.7] years), including 35 with anorexia nervosa. We investigated associations between red blood cell (RBC) and white blood cell (WBC) counts and BMAT assessed by ¹H‐magnetic resonance spectroscopy, BMD assessed by DXA, and bone microarchitecture assessed by HR‐pQCT. In addition, we analyzed longitudinal data in six premenopausal women with anorexia nervosa treated with transdermal estrogen for 6 months and measured changes in BMAT and blood cell counts during treatment. Cross‐sectionally, BMAT was inversely associated with WBC and RBC counts. In contrast, BMD and parameters of bone microarchitecture were positively associated with WBC and RBC. In women with anorexia nervosa treated with transdermal estrogen for 6 months, decreases in BMAT were significantly associated with increases in both RBC and hematocrit (rho = −0.83, p = 0.04 for both). In conclusion, we show that BMAT is inversely associated with WBC and RBC in premenopausal women, and there is a potential association between longitudinal changes in BMAT and changes in RBC. These associations warrant further study and may provide further insight into the role and function of this understudied adipose depot.

Keywords: ANOREXIA NERVOSA; BONE MICROARCHITECTURE; BONE MINERAL DENSITY; HEMATOPOIESIS; MARROW ADIPOSE TISSUE

Links

DOI: 10.1002/jbmr.3986

PubMed: 32078187

WoS: 000539928200005

History

Received: 2019-08-29

Revised: 2020-01-3

Accepted: 2020-02-13

Online: 2020-03-23

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Cited By (1)

Year	Entry
2022	Kim MJ, Valderrábano RJ, Wu JY. Osteoblast lineage support of hematopoiesis in health and disease. J Bone Miner Res. 2022;37(10):1823-1842.