Female athletes at risk of bone fracture resistant to muscle injury
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Genetic factors appear to affect the risk posed to female athletes for getting certain kinds of sport-related injuries, a new study suggests.
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Scientists found that female athletes fortunate enough to be resistant to muscle dislocation are more prone to getting fatigue fractures.
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The researchers said they discovered through their analysis that the genetic factors that help build tolerance against muscle fragmentation and fatigue fractures do not work at the same time.
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The finding is expected to lead to the development of new methods for injury prevention based on patients’ genetic conditions.
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However, that correlative relationship does not appear to exist in men.
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“Women have fewer proteins in their bones and muscles, and the differences come to the surface more easily,” said Eri Miyamoto, an assistant professor of genetics at Juntendo University.
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Miyamoto and her colleagues examined the genes of 1,667 male and female athletes primarily in their 20s and 30s. They compared their genetic makeup with their records of fatigue fractures, muscle dislocation and other kinds of myopathy, or muscle tissue problems.
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The results revealed no fewer than 17.8 percent of women marked by a certain genetic composition had developed stress fractures, while the ratio of myopathy was as low as 9.9 percent for the group.
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About 80 percent of the athletes had that genetic feature, which is associated with proteins that constitute bones and muscles.
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Researchers found those athletes had lower bone density and more flexible muscles.
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Women with another genetic element developed myopathy and fatigue fractures with a probability of 18.6 percent and 9.0 percent, respectively. This marked a sharp contrast to the results for the other group.
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However, no significant differences in the development risks from the disorders were found among the male athletes, according to the study.
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The team’s findings were published in March in the online edition of the U.S. sports medical journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, available at: https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Abstract/9000/Female_Athletes_Genetically_Susceptible_to_Fatigue.96070.aspx
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