Link: CNN.com - Low calorie count�key in bone injury risk for athletes - Sep 25, 2006.
"This research is well understood in the medical community," said John O'Kane, a sports medicine physician and associate professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. "I think that there's been a lot of work by the NCAA and others to make people more aware of this, it used to be coaches would tell their female athletes, 'You know you are training hard enough when you stop having your period.' Today, we understand that (no menstrual cycle) means a calorie deficiency and it can be dangerous." (Emphasis added)
Dayum. Glad they're getting this stuff figured out now, at least. I just wish someone had known to tell me this back in my 20s, when I was amenorrheic for two full years because I was maintaining goal weight through a ridiculously low calorie count plus serious weight training workouts. As it was, my nutritionist thought everything I was doing was just fine; my OB/GYN's solution for the lack of periods was to offer to give me an artificial period with pills; and nobody took seriously my deep premonition that whatever was happening in my body was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Comments