ArticleFrontiers in public health2026
Residential altitude was not independently associated with osteoporosis among long-term Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau residents.
Article in Frontiers in public health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: The association between long-term high-altitude residence and osteoporosis remains unclear. This study investigated whether body mass index (BMI) and vitamin D status modify the association between residential altitude and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA)-defined osteoporosis among long-term residents of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. In resource-limited high-altitude settings, limited access to DXA may hinder timely osteoporosis detection, and opportunistic use of routine computed tomography (CT), together with simple host characteristics such as BMI, may support pragmatic risk stratification. Methods: A single-centre, hospital-based retrospective case-control study was conducted among residents aged ≥50 years who had undergone non-contrast CT and DXA within 30 days and had lived on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau for ≥5 years. Osteoporosis was defined as a DXA T-score ≤ - 2.5, and individuals with osteopenia were excluded to increase phenotypic contrast. Residential altitude (1,500-4,600 m) was geocoded and analysed as a continuous variable per 100 m increment. Pre-specified interaction terms included residential altitude × BMI and residential altitude × 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D]. Additional BMI-stratified analyses used 24.0 kg/m Results: Among 377 participants (224 osteoporosis cases and 153 controls with normal bone mineral density), residential altitude was not independently associated with osteoporosis after multivariable adjustment (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.020 per 100 m, 95% CI 0.976-1.065; Conclusion: Residential altitude was not independently associated with osteoporosis in this hospital-based case-control study of long-term plateau residents. The data suggested possible BMI-related heterogeneity, but the evidence was inconclusive and should be interpreted cautiously. These findings are hypothesis-generating and may inform future opportunistic bone health assessment in resource-limited high-altitude settings.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.