“…Several authors (Karvonen et al, 1994;Cova et al, 1996;Dalla Palma et al, 1997;Eckstein et al, 1998aEckstein et al, , 2001aCicuttini et al, 1999;Jones et al, 2000) have investigated the correlation of knee-joint cartilage morphology with anthropometric variables such as body height, body weight, and age. Body height and weight have been shown to be only weakly correlated with cartilage volume (Dalla Palma et al, 1997;Eckstein et al, 1998a;Cicuttini et al, 1999;Jones et al, 2000), and in particular with cartilage thickness (Karvonen et al, 1994;Eckstein et al, 2001a). Considering that cartilage thickness may depend on the "loading history" of the joint (Kurrat and Oberlä nder, 1978;Mü ller-Gerbl et al, 1987;Carter et al, 1991;Eckstein et al, 1992;Adam et al, 1998), muscle cross-sectional areas (MCSAs) and muscle forces may provide better estimates of cartilage morphology than body height and weight or other anthropometric variables, because MCSAs have been shown to be strongly associated with muscle strength (Maughan et al, 1983;Brand et al, 1986), whereas joint loads are mainly determined by muscle force .…”