Reduction of Soft Tissue Injuries and Down Days with Female-Specific Collagen Intervention

Momentous seeks to deliver a joint health intervention designed specifically for female military servicemembers. It maximizes the benefit of collagen and vitamin C for injury reduction with novel additionals to limit increased injury risk due to the physiological impacsex-specificcific hormones. This effort will adapt the composition of Momentous Collagen Shot, a leading collagen product, to meet the military-specific use case of female-specific joint health. The design adds ingredients to counteract joint laxity seen during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. Momentous’ solution promotes collagen synthesis, deposition, and matrix building alongside tendon and ligament strength and bone density improvement. Across the US military, lower extremity overuse injuries are the leading cause of being medically not ready for duty, as well as lost and limited duty days. MSKI is the leading source of down days causing 25 million limited duty days DoD-wide annually resulting in 2.4 million doctor visits and accounting for $548 million in direct patient care cost (Teyhen et al., 2018). The military is constantly looking to develop new and innovative ways to improve the human performance and well-being of its servicemembers. Unfortunately, many of these solutions are not one-size-fits-all, especially regarding women. Women participating in the same sports as men suffer 2-8 times more catastrophic musculoskeletal injuries (MSKI)  than men (Larruskain et al. 2018; Waldén et al. 2011). A female servicemember is 2X more likely to suffer an MSKI than her male counterpart (Grimm et al., 2019). Of the 62,489 active USAF Security Forces duty personnel from 2009 to 2018, 40,771 (65.2%) were diagnosed with at least one musculoskeletal injury, where women had a 31% higher injury rate than men (Sundstrom et al., 2021). According to Rhon, Greenly, et al. (2021), females in the military have up to 3 times greater risk of sustaining lower extremity musculoskeletal injuries than their male counterparts and while women make up only 15% of the military population, they are 40% of military patients undergoing hip arthroscopy. Most injury reduction interventions seek to make a person stronger, change their posture or gait, or increase their range of motion. However, female servicemembers face two unique unmet challenges: (1) a lack of consideration for increased joint laxity, and subsequent increase in injury risk, as seen during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, and (2) a complete absence of female-specific interventions.  The team of collaborators joining Momentous includes among others: the world’s #1 collagen researcher, Keith Baar (Ph.D., Professor of Molecular Exercise Physiology, UC Davis). The RDT&E includes phases for product design, clinical research, manufacturing, and acceptance testing. A clinical research study will be performed among female athletes at UC Davis under Dr. Keith Baar to demonstrate solution superiority.