| Objective A hospital-based case-control study was conducted to investigate the role of serum CTRP3 in osteoporosis among postmenopausal women. Methods Serum levels of CTRP3 and osteocalcin were measured in 192 postmenopausal women who presented in our hospital between July 2016 and August 2017. Bone mineral density (BMD) of femoral neck and lumbar spines was measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. Results Serum CTRP3 level was lower in subjects with osteoporosis (75.5±20.6 ng/mL) than in controls (88.7±21.8 ng/mL) (P<0.001). Meanwhile, the frequency of osteoporosis presented a significant decrease (66.6％, 53.4％ and 35.3％, P<0.001) in the tertiles of serum CTRP3. Furthermore, serum CTRP3 was associated with a lower risk of osteoporosis (adjusted odds ratio=0.975，95％CI [0.962-0.987], P<0.001). Lastly, serum CTRP3 level positively correlated with femoral BMD (r=0.423, P<0.001), lumbar BMD (r=0.358, P<0.001), and HDL-C (r=0.123, P=0.014) among all participants after adjustment. Meanwhile, CTRP3 presented negative correlations with HOMA-IR (r=-0.127, P=0.005) and insulin (r=-0.187, P<0.001). Conclusion Our findings suggest that decreased serum level of CTRP3 was independently associated with osteoporosis. |