A U.S.-based researcher is hoping that a recent study into the connection between menopause and osteoarthritis will help pave the way for future treatments.

Dr. Fabrisia Ambrosio is the Director of the Atlantic Charter Discovery Center for Musculoskeletal Recovery, which is a part of the Spaulding Research Institute at Harvard.

Osteoarthritis as a degenerative disease of the joint, that Ambrosio says it is important to understand as it affects “tens of millions” of people in the United States alone.

She says the disease is primarily associated with aging, but they wanted to understand why women have an increased risk and severity.

Ambrosio says they found that osteo-arthritis can be linked to the significant loss of two sex hormones during menopause.

In the mice they tested, the found that restoring levels of the two hormones “significantly reduced” cartilage vulnerability and breaking. She says that suggests that the disease onset is “somewhat modifiable” by restoring normal levels of sex hormones.