Association between physical activity and menstrual cycle disorders in young athletes.

Our study aims at evaluating clinical predictors of menstrual cycle disorders in female athletes who compete in running disciplines. This is a prospective observational study. Women were recruited between January and May 2022. 53 patients were enrolled and completed a questionnaire about menstrual cycle, physical activity and food habits characteristics. 39,6% of women in our population had menstrual irregularities and reported a significantly higher number of kilometres run per week (67 vs 35, p:0.02). The number of kilometres run per week was associated with menstrual irregularities (for 10 km, OR 1,35; IC95% 1,05-1,73; p: 0,02) after adjusting for BMI, age, level of sport and caloric intake. The variable of "km run per week" appeared as a diagnostic indicator of irregular menstrual cycle with statistical significance (AUC ROC curve 0,71, IC95% 0,54-0,86, p-value = 0,01) and the cut off-of 65 km run per week is a good indicator of the presence of irregular menstrual cycle (sensitivity (SE) and specificity (SP) of 55% and 81,48%). Menstrual cycle disorders are very frequent in female athletes and the variable of km run per week may have a role in screening endurance athletes at high risk for them.

Informations de copyright

The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.