Proposal for Diet Supplementation to Prevent Knee Osteoarthritis in Female Soccer Players

Soccer is a widely practiced and highly mediatic sport discipline. For this reason, the incidence of injuries associated with the game is an active area of research. High-impact actions occur during the game, affecting the knee joint and resulting in osteoarthritis. In this line, knee osteoarthritis results from mechanical and biological stress due to lesions that are not adequately repaired, resulting in an inflammatory process. This occurs because the degradation of extracellular matrix predominates over synthesis by chondrocytes. Therefore, in soccer players, knee osteoarthritis results from joint traumatic actions, displaying a degenerative evolution. Osteoarthritis occurs in up to 32% of male soccer players, 3 times more than in the male general population. On the other hand, female soccer players are a main target population to suffer from knee osteoarthritis, with a higher significant incidence observed compared to men. In this context, certain diet supplements have an instrumental potential in the prevention and/or treatment of knee osteoarthritis. Therefore, the aim of this narrative review is to present possible research lines to implement treatments for knee osteoarthritis in female soccer players.