Background & Objective:Epilepsy may have an impact on bone health of the patients even before drug therapy is initiated, particularly in the developing countries. This is in view of long delay in diagnosis and lifestyle changes. Therefore, in this study, bone health markers like bone mineral density (BMD) and urinary hydroxyproline were assessed in newly diagnosed epilepsy patients. Methods: The BMD was assessed by DEXA scan, and 24 hour urine hydroxyproline was estimated colorimetrically in 25 newly diagnosed epilepsy patients. Other bone markers like calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D and alkaline phosphatase were also estimated. Results were compared with 25 age and sex matched healthy controls, and were analyzed statistically. Results: The BMD and vitamin D were found to be significantly decreased (p<0.05) while serum alkaline phosphatase and urine calcium and phosphorus were observed to be significantly increased p<0.05) in epilepsy patients as compared to healthy controls. The difference in urinary hydroxyproline and serum calcium/ phosphorus in the two groups was not found to be statistically significant (p>0.05). Conclusions: Bone health is found to be already compromised in epilepsy patients in this study from North India. BMD and urinary hydroxyproline may act as simple, non-invasive, convenient and inexpensive markers to assess bone health in these patients
Bone Density ; Epilepsy