Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-10-2021

Publication Title

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Volume

18

Issue

12

First page number:

1

Last page number:

21

Abstract

Despite the steady increase in female participation in sport over the last two decades, comprehensive research on interventions attenuating the influence of female menstrual physiology on performance remains scarce. Studies involving eumenorrheic women often only test in one menstrual phase to limit sex hormone variance, which may restrict the application of these findings to the rest of the menstrual cycle. The impacts of nutrition-based interventions on athletic performance throughout the menstrual cycle have not been fully elucidated. We addressed this gap by conducting a focused critical review of clinical studies that reported athletic outcomes as well as menstrual status for healthy eumenorrheic female participants. In total, 1443 articles were identified, and 23 articles were included. These articles were published between 2011 and 2021, and were retrieved from Google Scholar, Medline, and PubMed. Our literature search revealed that hydration-, micronutrient-, and phytochemical-based interventions can improve athletic performance (measured by aerobic capacity, anaerobic power, and strength performance) or attenuate exercise-induced damage (measured by dehydration biomarkers, muscle soreness, and bone resorption biomarkers). Most performance trials, however, only assessed these interventions in one menstrual phase, limiting the application throughout the entire menstrual cycle. Improvements in athletic performance through nutrition-based interventions may be contingent upon female sex hormone variation in eumenorrheic women.

Keywords

Electrolytes; Exercise performance; Female athlete; Menstrual cycle; Minerals; Phytochemicals; Rehydration; Vitamins

Disciplines

Human and Clinical Nutrition | Sports Sciences | Women's Health

File Format

pdf

File Size

1172 KB

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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