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February 8th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda WEDNESDAY, Feb. 8 (HealthDay News) — Intense training combined
with insufficient nutrition may threaten the health of young female soccer
players, suggests a new study that finds menstrual irregularities and
stress fractures are common among these athletes.
Nearly one in five elite female soccer players reported having
irregular menstrual cycles, while 14 percent had a stress fracture in the
past year, the study found.
Though the toll of so-called “aesthetic sports,” such as dance and
gymnastics, and endurance sports, such as running, on young women’s bodies
has been well studied, soccer has largely escaped scrutiny, said lead
study author Dr. Heidi Prather, an associate professor and chief of the
physical medicine and rehabilitation section at Washington University
School of Medicine in St. Louis.
“No one has studied soccer much, yet soccer is the most-played sport by
girls in the U.S. as far as sheer numbers,” Prather said.
The study, scheduled for presentation Tuesday at the American Academy
of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ meeting in San Francisco, included 220 elite
female soccer athletes from nationally ranked clubs in the St. Louis
area, a Division 1 university team and a professional soccer team. Average
age was 16.
Nearly one in five of those already menstruating reported irregular
menstrual cycles, in which the time between periods was fewer than 28 days
or more than 34 days, and/or skipping a period the previous year. They
included 19 percent of the 15- to 17-year-olds, 18 percent of college
athletes and 20 percent of pros.
“Girls who have menstrual dysfunction are at risk for long-term health
problems,” Prather said. “When you have menstrual dysfunction and you are
not regularly having a period, your body is not receiving the appropriate
estrogen load it should.”
Too little estrogen can impact bone health, leading to the
bone-thinning disease osteoporosis.
Also concerning are the “relatively high and even alarming rate of
stress fractures,” said Dr. Mininder Kocher, associate director of the
division of sports medicine at Children’s Hospital Boston.
Stress fractures are tiny cracks in the bone caused by overuse, Kocher
explained. The soccer players in the study mostly had fractures of the
ankle or foot.
“A bone is alive. When we run and jump, we make small injuries in the
bone, but most of the time we’re able to heal them. When we’re making
injuries at a higher rate than we can heal, we get an overuse problem,
such as a stress fracture,” Kocher explained.
Stress fractures are too small for X-ray detection, but can be seen
with an MRI scan. Treatment is typically rest, a healthy diet and
adequate consumption of calcium and vitamin D, although some stress
fractures require surgery.
The message for female athletes and their coaches is to make sure that
in the quest to achieve excellence in sports, they’re not compromising
their long-term health, Prather said.
Experts call the three major health risks associated with female
athletes the “female athlete triad” — amenorrhea (or absence of periods),
disordered eating and osteoporosis.
The good news is that among the soccer players studied, most girls
scored in the normal range on a test of eating attitudes, which assesses
risk of eating disorders.
Girls who are having irregular periods should bring it up with their
doctor, Prather suggested. “And if you’ve had more than two stress
fractures, you definitely should be evaluated to make sure your bone
quality is good and you don’t have osteoporosis,” she said.
Women’s bone density peaks at about age 25, so it’s important that
teens and young women have regular periods and eat a proper diet to
maintain their estrogen levels and build bone density to avoid
osteoporosis later in life, the experts said.
In another study to be presented at the same meeting, Swedish
researchers found that young female soccer players who took part in a
15-minute warm-up were 64 percent less likely to injure their ACL
(anterior cruciate ligament), a ligament inside the knee.
The exercises, done twice a week, focused on knee control and core
stability. The study involved more than 4,000 female soccer players
Research presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary
until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
More information
The Nemours Foundation has more on the female athlete
triad.
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