There is growing awareness of an association between cardiovascular disease and fractures, and a temporal increase in fracture risk after myocardial infarction has been identified. To further explore the nature of this relationship, we systematically examined the association of hip fracture with all disease categories and assessed related secular trends.

By using resources of the Rochester Epidemiology Project, a population-based incident case-control study was conducted. Disease history was compared among all Olmsted County, Minnesota, residents aged 50 years or more with a first radiographically confirmed hip fracture in 1985-2006 and community control subjects individually matched (1:1) to cases on age, sex, and index year (n = 3808; mean age, 82 years; standard deviation, 9 years; 76% were women).

All cardiovascular and numerous non-cardiovascular disease categories (eg, infectious diseases, nutritional and metabolic diseases, mental disorders, diseases of the nervous system and sense organs, and diseases of the respiratory system) were associated with fracture risk. However, increasing temporal trends were detected almost exclusively in cardiovascular disease categories. The largest increases in association were observed for ischemic heart disease, other forms of heart disease (including heart failure), hypertension, and diabetes, and were more pronounced among elderly women than other demographic subgroups.

Although the association with hip fracture was not specific to cardiovascular disease, temporal increases were mainly detected in cardiometabolic diseases, all of which have been linked previously to frailty. This mechanism and others warrant further investigation.