If you are a young healthy female runner, well great news for you. However, if you're a young female runner but amenorrheic (or not menstruating), results do not seem to differ much from non athletes.
We know stress fractures (http://weloverunning.blogspot.sg/2009/05/shin-splints-or-stress-fracture.html) are common in endurance athletes. There have been studies on bone structure in the tibia (or shin bone) in athletes. The study below looks at hip structure in female athletes.
In order to find out more about hip structural soundness, researchers performed bone density scans in 3 groups of women (normal menstruating athletes, amenorrheic athletes and non athletes) aged 14-22. The athletes ran at least 20 miles a week or did at least four hours of weight bearing sports a week.
No prizes for guessing then that the female athletes who menstruated had better hip geometry and bone mineral density than the amenorrheic athletes and the non athletes. The amenorrheic athletes' readings were in fact similar to the non athletes.
* Picture from Flickr.com
No comments:
Post a Comment