Scientists reveal why more women suffer from TMJ disorder :
More than twice as many women as men suffer from temporomandibular joint
osteoarthritis. However, the mechanismunderlying this significant sex
difference is still not fully understood by specialists. Now, a team of
Chinese researchers has suggested that oestrogens could worsen the
condition.
In the study, researchers at the Peking University School and Hospital of Stomatology treated five groups of female rats with 17β-estradiol, one of the most important natural oestrogens, at a dosage of 0, 20 and 80 μg/day, respectively.
They found that the sex hormone increased cartilage degradation and subchondral bone erosion of the temporomandibular joint in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, they observed that it up-regulated a number of genes that induce programmed cell death.
The findings suggest that certain oestrogens could aggravate temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis, which may be an important mechanism underlying the sexual dimorphism of the disorder.
The study, titled “Estrogen aggravates iodoacetate-induced temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis”, was published online on 9 August in the Journal of Dental Research ahead of print.
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