Add another complication to the list of health conditions tied to Type 2 diabetes: Osteoporosis.
 

A new Mayo Clinic study has found the obesity-related metabolic disorder dramatically increases the risk of developing the bone-wasting disease. The finding, published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, adds osteoporosis to a long list of diabetes-related complications, including vascular and heart disease, eye problems, nerve damage, kidney disease, hearing problems, and Alzheimer's disease.
 

"This is the first demonstration — using direct measurement of bone strength in the body — of compromised bone material in patients with Type 2 diabetes," said Sundeep Khosla, M.D., a Mayo Clinic endocrinologist who helped conduct the study. "Clearly, the skeleton needs to be recognized as another important target of diabetes complications."
 

Previous studies have found diabetics experience bone fractures more often than the general population, hinting that something was different about the "quality" of their bones. The Mayo researchers confirmed those suspicions by examining 60 postmenopausal women, 30 of whom had diabetes, using a new tool that measures bone material strength.
 

The results showed women with Type 2 diabetes had significantly lower bone material strength, suggesting poor glucose control has a negative impact on bone quality.