Low lumbar spine bone mineral density in both male and female endurance runners

There have been many reports of low bone mineral density (BMD) in female endurance runners. Although there have been several reports of low BMD in male runners, it is unclear how comparable the problem is to that in females. We compared BMD between male and female endurance runners and with a reference population. One hundred and nine endurance runners (65 females, 44 males) aged 19–50 years participated and had been training regularly for at least 3 years (32–187.2 km week −1) in events from 3 km to the marathon. BMD was measured at the lumbar spine (L2–L4) and hip by DXA. A questionnaire assessed training and menstrual status. Lumbar spine T scores were similar in male and female runners (−0.8 (0.8) versus −0.8 (0.7); f = 0.015; P = 0.904) as were total hip T scores (0.6 (7.9) versus 0.5 (9.2); f = 0.192; P = 0.662). The proportion of male runners with low lumbar spine BMD (