Joint pain after the menopause: how to address it

Osteoarthritis (OA) strikes women, above all after the menopause. This inflammatory and degenerative joint disease presents a 1:1 ratio between men and women up to the age of fifty. After this age, the ratio rapidly rises up to 3:1, thus revealing a critical dependence of the joint’s inflammatory and degenerative process on hormone deficiency.
This lecture has three objectives:
1.to briefly review the evidence of hormone sensitivity of joint structures in women;
2.to analyse the characteristics of early onset, aggressive OA soon after the menopause;
3.to discuss the evidence in favour of Menopausal Hormone Therapy (MHT), when not contraindicated, to prevent and modulate the course of this inflammatory and degenerative joint disease. Specific advantages of MHT for women with an aggressive early OA, more so if associated with a premature menopause, will be finally discussed.