Obesity is associated with ill health. In elderly, the clinical practice of body weight maintenance and their bone health are crucial. In a cross-sectional study, we evaluated association between fat mass and fat-free mass with bone mineral density (BMD) in 571 community-dwelling, ≥75 years, from Herne, Germany. Data was collected from July 2005 to July 2006. In preliminary analysis, fat-free mass and height yielded direct association with BMD. Fat mass, body mass index and weight yielded quadratic association with BMD. Final analysis included fat and fat-free mass simultaneously at reduced sample of 456. Fat mass yielded both direct (beta value: 0.009) and inverse (-0.0001) associations with BMD. Fat-free mass or muscularity showed direct (0.01) association only, explaining BMD to the largest extent and remains pertinent for bone health. Our study suggests that adiposity in elderly could harbor bone health adverse and protective effects, where direct association exceeded the inverse in this study.

aged, anthropometry, body composition, bone mineral density, directed acyclic graphs, elderly, fat mass, fat-free mass.