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Female athletes with PCOS - nutrition tips
Hey EN ladies - I contributed to this article to Triathlete Magazine on PCOS. It's an intriguing condition for athletes. Not all women fall into the general criteria for a diagnosis of PCOS. If you are managing PCOS or know of someone I would love to hear from you.
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@Sheila Leard As an Ob-Gyn from 1974-2014, I saw my share of this syndrome. While I never explored it from a nutritional perspective, I did observe that women with this condition seemed to have to work twice as hard to manage their body comp as others without. Meaning, that to get the same effect, they had to exercise twice as much and eat half as much as other folks to keep a stable weight. (Those %-ages are, I know, precise but inaccurate numbers.)
On the plus side, the slight increase in T from the ovaries may have been a bit of an advantage.
@Sheila Leard 2 of my 3 girls have PCOS. Ally is a runner, 21 yrs old, and Lauren is a College LAX player, 18 yrs old. will share your article with them and see if they will consider contact. the biggest issue for them is eating habits and losing weight. They both have a very tough time with it and Ally has really had a bad year in this respect. Love to chat offline if you like.
@scott dinhofer I'd be glad to chat offline. It's a complicated disorder for athletes. One of the things it causes is a lack of feeling full after eating and unexpected carb cravings. sheilaleard@att.net
It has been recommended to change the name from PCOS to Hyperandrogenic Persistent Ovulatory Dysfunction Syndrome or HA-PODS.
@Al Truscott did you ever prescribe Metformin?
PS - Scott, hoping for a quick turn on your symptoms and condition. 🙏
@Sheila Leard Great read! I never knew about this syndrome. I did a quick search on Google Scholar to see what popped up in journal articles, and I was surprised to see PCOS paralleled with adrenal hyperplasia. Both of my brothers have CAD -- somehow I escaped the genes. As a female, I'll take that luck of the draw.
I am interested to read if the higher T in females is to blame for the insulin spikes, adrenal issues and overall hormonal imbalance, and how that differs from females who suffer from athletic amenorrhea compared to those who have hyperandrogenism?
As a female athlete who is ALWAYS (as you know) trying to wrap my head around nutitition that works for my physiology, it's fascinating to see how science always comes back to gut health, mitigating hormonal imbalance, and extra TLC for those adrenals.
OMG so many big words. Here is the article I found: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4298294/
@Emily Brinkley PCOS has many variables in the overweight vs lean women. The puzzling thing is that insulin resistance (IR) in an endurance athlete isn't common, but very common in an overweight woman who is sedentary. I have not seen any correlation to elevated testosterone to IR. What I do find interesting is the elevated Leptin in many of these these women. It's the hormone that tells us we're full, stop eating. With Leptin resistance many PCOS women don't feel full and need to be on calorie counts to control their weight.
Much of the belly fat is because the poor metabolism of Carbs and potentially elevated cortisol. An area worth exploring for these women is Chrono Nutrition. If they or anyone can hone in on their Circadian rhythm and Diurnal rhythm you can get in sync with your hormones. https://www.integrativenutrition.com/blog/2018/02/what-you-need-to-know-about-chrono-nutrition-and-meal-timing (more on this later)
Lots of unknowns in this condition.
Have prescribed metformin for this. But not sure it helped in my limited sample.
Good article. I hace PCOS. Have had a complicated medical track record. Find managing body comp a challenge. Al is right about working twice as hard. It's tough. I have insulin resistence plus other issues. If you want to talk off line I am available.