like mother, like daughter? dietary and non-dietary bone fracture risk factors in mothers and their daughters

background : the aim of this study was to demonstrate similarities and differences between mothers and daughters regarding dietary and non-dietary risk factors for bone fractures and osteoporosis. methods : the study was carried out in 2007-2010 on 712 mothers (29-59 years) and daughters (12-21 years) family pairs. in the sub-sample (170 family pairs) bone mineral density (bmd) was measured for the forearm by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (dxa). the consumption of dairy products was determined with a semi-quantitative food fre-quency questionnaire (ados-ca) and calcium intake from the daily diet was calculated. results : the presence of risk factors for bone fractures in mothers and daughters was significantly correlated. the spearman rank coefficient for dietary factors of fracture risk was 0.87 (p<0.05) in whole sub-sample, 0.94 (p<0.05) in bottom tercile of bmd, 0.82 (p<0.05) in middle tercile of bmd, 0.54 (p>0.05) in upper tercile of bmd and for non-dietary factors of fracture risk was 0.83 (p<0.05) in whole sub-sample, 0.86 (p<0.05) in bottom tercile of bmd, 0.93 (p<0.05) in middle tercile of bmd, 0.65 (p<0.05) in upper tercile of bmd. conclusions : our results confirm the role of the family environment for bone health and document the stronger ef-fect of negative factors of the family environment as compared to other positive factors on bone fracture risk.