Cardiovascular Performance And Prevalence Of Menstrual Disorders

PURPOSE: The incidence of amenorrhea is much grater observed among the athletes than in sedentary, however the implication of this feature with the cardiovascular performance remain less clear. The study is aimed to investigate this aspect in a larger group of athletes from sports at different static and dynamic component. METHODS: Two groups of athletes 1Group (1G of 50 subjects) aged 16+ or -2, from swimming and dance at high dynamic and low static load and 2Group (2G of 50 subjects) from volley-ball and gymnastic artistic at moderate/high dynamic and static load, were submitted to a questionnaire to evaluate the prevalence of menstrual disorders and also to an echocardiopgraphyc exam to verify the associated morphological and functional pattern. RESULTS: the menstrual disorders result to be generally low (13%) with an exclusive presence in the 2G. All the echo parameter are within the normal range in both without any significant variation with the exclusion of the Cardiac Mass Index(CMI) value that results to be significantly lower in the 2G respect of the 1G(Fig1). Otherwise the nutrition parameters show a significant increase of the Fat Free Mass (FFM) in the 1G vs the 2G. An inverse behavior (Fig2)has been observed for the Fatty Mass (FM) CONCLUSIONS: The results support the hypothesis that the prevalence of the irregular menstrual cycle are independent from the nutritional parameters in sports at high-moderate dynamic component. An opposite trend is evident for the CMI that seems to be associated to a superior and more equilibrate body composition.