Women can be just as resilient as men in undertaking arduous physical activity with appropriate training and preparation, a study has found.
Researchers showed that women who underwent extreme physical training and completed a transantarctic expedition did not show any more negative health effects than would be expected in men.
It has been reported that the female reproductive system and stress responses are more sensitive to the negative effects of extreme physical activity.There is some evidence that arduous physical activity can suppress normal female reproductive hormone activity, impair bone strength and elevate stress hormone levels to a greater extent than in men.However, the reasons underlying these reported gender differences in response to extreme endurance exercise remain poorly understood.Robert Gifford and colleagues from the University of Edinburgh in the UK examined the effects of extreme exercise on hormone levels and the health of six women participating in the first all-female transantarctic expedition.
The researchers monitored several markers of their health before and after the successful expedition. These included indicators of stress, reproductive and metabolic hormone levels, body weight and bone strength.
