GCopyright 1995by Humana Press Inc. All rights of any nature whatsoever reserved. 0163-4984/95/4801q3001 $06.20 The Relationship of Nutritional Copper to the Development of Postrnenopausal Osteoporosis in Rats CINDY D. YEE, 1 KAREN S. KUBENA, 1 MICHAEL WALKER, 2 THOMAS H. CHAMPNEY, 3 AND H. WAYNE SAMPSON *'3 1Human Nutrition Section, Department of Animal Science; 2Radiology Section, Department of Large Animal Medicine and Surgery, College of Veterinary Medicine; and 3Department of Human Anatomy, College of Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843 Received March 31, 1994; Accepted June 30, 1994 ABSTRACT Factors that influence tissue copper concentration include age, diet, hormones, and pregnancy. In this study we altered diet inde- pendently, hormone (estrogen) independently, and various combina- tions of diet and hormone in animals of the same age to study the effects of ovariectomy complicated with dietary copper deficiency; a deficiency that has been demonstrated to cause bone defects. Sprague-Dawley rats were placed on various combinations of copper deficient or enriched diets before and/or after ovariectomy to deter- mine if copper deficiency aggravated osteoporosis and if return to a copper-adequate diet alleviated it. In this study, ovariectomy did induce an osteopenia that was characterized by decreased trabecular bone. This osteopenia was slightly more severe with copper defi- ciency, but was not necessarily alleviated by the return of normal cop- per levels to the diet. Index Entries: Osteopenia; copper; bone development; osteo- porosis. *Author to whom all correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed. Biological Trace Element Research ] Vol. 48, 1995