Low estrogen levels linked to knee arthritis
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In middle-aged women, low levels of estrogen are associated with the development of knee osteoarthritis, researchers report
“This opens up a new area of investigation that can examine the role and contribution of naturally occurring hormones in the development of osteoarthritis,” lead investigator Dr. MaryFran R. Sowers told Reuters Health.
However, she stressed that this does not mean that doctors “should now prescribe hormone therapy” for their patients with arthritis.
Sowers, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and her colleagues note in the medical journal Arthritis and Rheumatism that sex differences in the prevalence of osteoarthritis suggest that sex hormones, or alterations in these hormones associated with menopause, may contribute to the development of arthritis.
To investigate further, the researchers studied 842 white and African American women. Close to 75 percent of the women were premenopausal. At the start of the study in the mid-1990s, 11 percent of them had osteoarthritis, and each year 3.2 percent more developed the condition.
Estrogen levels in the blood of women who developed knee osteoarthritis was about 15 percent lower than in those without arthritis. This difference wasn’t significant from a statistical standpoint, but the affected women did have significantly lower of levels of estrogen breakdown products in their urine.
Moreover, women who developed knee osteoarthritis had significantly greater odds of having the lowest levels of estrogen during the early phase of their menstrual cycle.
The findings do not mean that estrogen treatment is warranted to prevent osteoarthritis, but they might lead researchers to more effective treatments.
SOURCE: Arthritis and Rheumatism, August 2006.
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