Does menopause increase a woman's risk of joint pain or joint complaints?

Joint pain is one of the most commonly reported complaints around the time of menopause. More than 70% of women experience musculoskeletal complaints during the menopausal transition, and in a quarter of them this temporarily leads to limitations in daily life. The association with declining oestrogen is strong and consistently observable across multiple studies, but a fully proven causal relationship has not yet been established.

In addition to joint pain (arthralgia), menopause also increases the risk of osteoarthritis. After menopause, women develop osteoarthritis more frequently and more severely than men of the same age, pointing to a role for sex hormones. The exact biological mechanism has not yet been fully clarified. At the same time, oestrogen loss is accompanied by a decline in muscle mass and bone density, which contributes to a broader vulnerability of the musculoskeletal system.

Not all joint pain during menopause is purely hormonal. Overweight and obesity worsen complaints, partly through the mechanical load placed on joints and partly through the interaction of adipose tissue with hormones. Sleep problems, stress, and mood disorders, which are very common during this phase of life, can also amplify the experience of pain. The severity of complaints is therefore the result of multiple factors acting simultaneously.

In the area of treatment and prevention, evidence for specific interventions remains limited. A systematic review of 15 randomised studies found that collagen peptides combined with exercise can reduce joint pain and improve joint function, but most of those studies were conducted in athletes and younger women before menopause. Whether this also applies to women going through menopause is therefore uncertain. For specific dietary patterns or nutritional supplements, there is currently insufficient evidence to say that they effectively reduce joint pain in menopausal women; the review authors state this explicitly.