Women recover muscle more slowly than men

By Tom Riggs and Anita Martin

Women’s muscles may require longer, more intensive rehabilitation after bedrest and cast immobilization, as reported last fall by OU-COM’s Interdisciplinary Institute for Neuromusculoskeletal Research (IINR) in Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

“Our findings may have important implications for how women are treated for fractures, including more and/or different rehabilitation methods,” says researcher Brian C. Clark, Ph.D., assistant professor of neuromuscular biology and director of the IINR.

According to Clark, the discrepancy may relate to how sex-specific hormones regulate the growth of muscle mass. The study is the first to report sex differences in muscle strength restoration following immobilization of a limb.