As being a female athlete, I have to deal with something that male athletes never have to deal with – a menstrual cycle. As all of my fellow females can contest to, menstrual cycles are not fun, and I think many of us ladies have imagined what it would be like to have it disappear. Not having our menses seems fantastic at first, however, the absence of the menses would set up a series of devastating consequences in the long term, affecting any female.
Everyone can agree that as an athlete, the health of your skeletal system is adamant for proper performance and well-being whether you’re male or female. More often than not, females are put under more extreme circumstances, forcing us to meet certain leanness and body fat percentages (Rogers 2021), and often both internal and external pressures from sports result in a female taking her body to the extremes to meet such demands, resulting in menstrual irregularities, namely amenorrhea (Rogers 2021). Amenorrhea is the absence of a regular menses. There are two types, primary and secondary. In this post, I will specifically talk about secondary amenorrhea, which is cessation of a regular menses for three months or more or the cessation of irregular menses for 6 months or more (Rogers 2021). This has some very concerning consequences on the skeletal system, because not only does this situation compromise an individual’s ability to achieve peak bone mass, it also may increase the risk of bone related injuries and potentially lead to osteoporosis in the long-term (Rogers 2021). This is honestly scary, because the female menstrual cycle juggles with a number of hormones, such as progesterone, estrogen, and estradiol, to name a few, and these hormones also have a correlation with bone health. Estrogen is an inhibitor of bone turnover and helps to maintain the balance between bone resorption and formation (Rogers 2021), while progesterone and estradiol protect against bone loss and also slows the rate of bone remodeling (Rogers 2021). When these hormones are not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, or, when they aren’t present anymore, like during amenorrhea, this is when bone complications begin to arise. And to put amenorrhea aside for a moment, it is [also] important to stress that the female sex per se is more prone to have osteopenia or osteoporosis because the optimal PBM reached by females is 25–30 % lower than in males (Meczekalski et al. 2014) in a healthy female. When such menstrual irregularities surface, it just increases the deteriorating domino effect. To finally understand some of the detrimental long-term consequences on the skeletal system from a menstrual irregularity is eye-opening, and, frankly, should be something made more public. Studies regarding menstrual irregularities and bone complications could also shed light on hormonal birth control affects, and how synthetic hormones within birth control could possibly help such dysfunctions.
Rogers, Stacey. “Bone Health, Birth Control and the Female Athlete.” JPS Health & Fitness, 3 Feb. 2021, www.jpshealthandfitness.com.au/bone-health-birth-control-and-the-female-athlete.
Rogers, Stacey. “Menstrual Cycle Dysfunction in Female Athletes.” JPS Health & Fitness, 20 Jan. 2021, www.jpshealthandfitness.com.au/menstrual-cycle-dysfunction-in-female-athletes.
Meczekalski, B., et al. “Functional Hypothalamic Amenorrhea and Its Influence on Women’s Health.” Journal of Endocrinological Investigation, vol. 37, no. 11, 2014, pp. 1049–56. Crossref, doi:10.1007/s40618-014-0169-3.
Wow cool post! Thanks for your perspective. I think it’s really interesting how much our menstrual cycles, or lack thereof, affect us. I get really frustrated with society’s attitude toward periods, and how little women are actually told/educated about their bodies and the cycles of hormones that go along with being a woman. I feel like a lot of times we are told to ignore our periods and pretend they don’t exist, to make things more comfortable for the men around us (I think this is an attitude that is slowly changing with our generation). But, as it stands, we still do experience the effects of this mindset, and it can be very damaging. The main issue I see with it is when something goes wrong, like developing amenorrhea, we don’t say anything, because we see our periods as an inconvenience, which is totally a societal thing. We’re supposed to pretend like they aren’t happening, so when they actually don’t, I don’t think we give a second thought to it (once it’s realized that a pregnancy has not occurred, lol). I personally know girls who won’t get their periods for months and not say anything because they simply aren’t aware of the detrimental effects of not getting a period.
ReplyDeleteANYWAY, off of that tangent, looking at how the body is affected by the period is really fun for me. In an article called “Women are Not Small Men: Sex Differences in Nutrition and Exercise” the differences in how women need to eat and exercise because of their menstrual cycles are explored. I was not aware of any of the things talked about in the article; I wonder if more women were aware of just how different our bodies are from mens' we would see a decrease in the development of amenorrhea because we would stop incorrectly treating our bodies like they are the same as mens'.
A couple of really interesting points from the article are that our monthly cycle of hormones affect everything, from our internal temp rising half a degree (making our rate of fatigue much quicker) to our VO2 maxes blunting (due to increased levels of Estrogen before ovulation). Our plasma levels decrease pretty significantly (meaning less blood circulating, which equals a harder time regulating temperature). We start to metabolize fatty acids and spare glycogen, which lowers our energy levels and doesn’t allow us to build lean muscle as easily. No wonder we feel so off at some points in our cycle!
I think what this highlights for me is something you said at the beginning of your post: “As being a female athlete, I have to deal with something that male athletes never have to deal with – a menstrual cycle.” We are not small men; we cannot do the same things men do to get in shape and see the same results they will. We need to eat differently, drink differently, and overall exercise differently to build muscle in a healthy way.