ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that can cause chronic pain in the joints, preys more often on women than on men. It also impairs women more severely.

New research conducted in 25 countries internationally shows women with rheumatoid arthritis report worse symptoms than men. In addition, 79 percent of the rheumatoid arthritis patients involved in the study were women, confirming speculation that women suffer from the condition more often than men.

Patients who participated in the study were seen by a doctor and completed a self-report about their condition. The gender gap in the severity of symptoms was widest in the self-reported part of the study.

"Women feel the burden much worse than men, although we couldn't find that the disease itself was worse in women than men," lead study author Tuulikki Sokka, of the Jyvaskyla Central Hospital in Finland, told Ivanhoe.

Dr. Sokka says the gender gap among symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis may have to do with the fact that women have a weaker musculoskeletal system than men. That could mean the female body is more vulnerable to the disease.

"If females and males were the same size and the same structure … possibly, we wouldn't see all these differences," Sokka said.

SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with Tuulikki Sokka; Arthritis Foundation Disease Index; Arthritis Research and Therapy, 2009;11:R8