Female Hormones and Knee Laxity
From American College of Sports Medicine
July 2004
www.acsm-msse.org

On my Scale Lies webpage and in counseling sessions, I have mentioned how female hormones affect our joints.   During midcycle (day 12-16 after the last period STARTED) is typically time for ovulation, (or my lovely technical term of “dropping eggs”). If someone is on the birth control pill, they will not ovulate, and won’t be at risk for these injuries.

25 females were studied (age 18-30) with normal cycles.  They had blood draws done daily to test for hormones and laxity of their knees were measured.  Some women had very little to no changes in laxity, while some had as much as 5 mm!

It is believed that estrogen and progesterone effect collagen properties.

As always, more research will be done, and the risk seems to vary among women, but be careful with your knees during this time.  It can still be a risk factor for Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries.

For the full technical version of this see their site.  Schultz and Kirk are the main authors.