Lewis JR, Eggermont CJ, Schousboe JT, et al. - Researchers determined the relationship between abdominal aortic calcification (AAC), skeletal structure, and fractures in a prospective 10-year study that included 1,024 older (mostly Caucasian) women (mean age 75.0 ± 2.6 years) from the Perth Longitudinal Study of Aging cohort. They evaluated AAC and spine fracture at the time of hip densitometry and heel quantitative ultrasound. Using the Genant semi-quantitative method, prevalent vertebral fractures were calculated. Women with moderate to severe AAC had increased fracture risk vs women with low AAC for 10-year incident clinical fractures and fracture-related hospitalizations. After adjusting for age and hip BMD for clinical fractures, this link remained significant but was attenuated for fracture-related hospitalizations. The authors discovered that older women with more marked AAC may be at a greater risk of fracture, not fully captured by predictors of bone structure. Vascular calcification and bone pathology might share similar causation mechanisms that still need to be fully explained.