Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disease which caused by various factors like genes, biology, hormones and body overweight. This is one of the most common forms of arthritis.
It is estimated that over 27 million people in US are suffering from this joint disease and more than 60 percent of these are women in the age group of 55+.
Osteoarthritis affects more women due to their use of many types of birth control pills and also the imbalance of their hormonal levels.
Nature has built women with lesser tolerance to joint weakness and this manifest more when they get older.
Why Osteoporosis is More Common in Women?
Women are the ones who are burdened with childbirth and lactation that needs the functions of many hormones to get over these tedious bodily functions in a proper way.
Due to this, the tendons and cartilages in the lower body of the woman are more elastic and move more than those of the men.
Moreover, as their hips are wider than their knees the overall alignment of the women’s bodies are not the same as men and this also makes them susceptible to contracting joint diseases more easily than the men.
It is common to see almost all women in their younger child bearing ages use oral contraceptives popularly called as birth control pills to prevent unwanted pregnancies. These are made of hormonal substances and are designed to interfere with the normal hormone activities to prevent the pregnancy.
The female body needs doses of both estrogen (the female hormone) and testosterone (the male hormone) to function properly and the balance of these two hormones is essential for many of the vital functions of her body.
Role of Estrogen in Osteoarthritis
Many studies have found that the female hormones are having a good effect on the cartilages of the joints that gives a cushioning effect for the joints to function properly. It is also found that the estrogen hormone is needed to protect the cartilages from inflammation and cartilage damage.
But the use of the birth control pills disturbs the balance of estrogen levels in the body and thus expose the cartilages to the risk of inflammation and damage leading to osteoarthritis.
This makes her joints vulnerable to sitting in of osteoarthritis even at younger ages and progresses with age.
When the woman gets older and goes past her menopause the levels of estrogen further goes down, leading to an accelerated level of cartilage inflammation causing faster damages to the joints.
This makes her joints weaker and the osteoarthritis progresses faster in her joints. Thus, the use of birth control pills aids in the early onset of osteoarthritis and help in its progression faster with advancing age.
Though there are many causes for the high prevalence of osteoarthritis in women, use of birth control pills becomes the most significant among them. Especially those women who go for hormone replacement treatment the HRT are more prone to suffer from osteoarthritis when they get older.
