My dexa scan z score is -2.6 what does this mean exactly ?, i am 53.

Z score is age based: Z score is comparing the patient's bone mineral density to the average of a group of age, ethnicity and gender matched normals. T score compares to a 30 yo normal of the same gender and ethnicity. For all females in the us (no specific ethnicity), according to the cdc, using a z score of -2.6 and age of 50-60, the actual bmd should approx 0.6 g/cc3 which compares to low in an over 80 yo.

Low: Z score compares your bone density to the average of your age group. If it is a positive number, you have above average bone density. If negative, below. The actual number represents the "standard deviations" from the mean, how far away from average you are. For -2.6, it means that you are approximately in the lower 3% for bone density for your age. That is, 97% have higher bone density than u