Prevalence of knee OA lower with menopausal hormone therapy

(HealthDay)—For postmenopausal women, the prevalence of knee osteoarthritis is lower with menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) use, according to a study published online Dec. 21 in Menopause.

Jae Hyun Jung, M.D., Ph.D., from the Korea University College of Medicine in Seoul, and colleagues collected data from 4,766 postmenopausal women from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2009 to 2012). MHT was defined as use of regular hormone medication for one year or more; the correlation between prevalence of knee OA and MHT was examined.

The researchers found that the odds ratio for OA was 0.7 for the MHT group versus the non-MHT group in the multiple logistic regression models.

"This cross-sectional study precludes conclusions about causal relationships, so further prospective studies and intervention trials should be undertaken to establish a causal association between knee OA and MHT," the authors write.