Transparent Skin and Osteoporosis

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The prevalence of transparent skin and its relationship to osteoporosis has been studied in 102 women, all over the age of 40, with rheumatoid disease. Transparent skin was found more often in the 102 women with rheumatoid disease, whether they had had corticosteroids or not, than in 200 women with other diseases. The finding supports the view that transparent skin is the consequence of a disorder of connective tissue. Women who had transparent skin had usually had arthritis for many years. The prevalence of transparent skin in women who had and who had not had corticosteroids did not differ significantly; purpura, a known complication of corticosteroid therapy, was more common in the treated group. Thus corticosteroids had apparently not helped the development of transparent skin. There was a close association between transparent skin and osteoporosis. Transparent skin is usually thin skin; osteoporosis was therefore nearly as common in women with thin skin (skin-fold < 1.6 mm) as in those whose skin looked transparent. However, when we compared patients who matched in respect of skin-fold thickness, we found that osteoporosis was more closely associated with transparency than with thinness of the skin.

This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit: