Female astronauts could avoid knee injuries during space flight — and better tests, prevention and treatments could be developed for knee osteoarthritis in women here on Earth — based on newly published research on the sex differences in knee meniscus tissue.

Knee osteoarthritis is more common in females than in males, but hormones alone are not enough to explain the difference. The new research identifies a genetic difference in the meniscus that makes about 50 per cent of females more vulnerable to developing osteoarthritis than males or other females.

Researchers carried out the experiments in part by simulating low-gravity conditions in space,...