Tag: female sex hormones

Categories : Obstetrics & GynaecologyTags :

Women are Turning to Testosterone, but What does the Science Actually Say?

On By ModernMedia
Ball and stick 3D model of testosterone. Source: Wikimedia CC0

Daniel Kelly, Sheffield Hallam University

A recent BBC report described women posing as men to get hold of testosterone gel, hoping to improve their menopause symptoms, because female testosterone products are not easily available to them. But why is the appetite for this predominantly male hormone exploding and are there risks involved?

Testosterone is usually thought of as the defining male hormone. It is linked to puberty, muscle development and reproductive function. But this overlooks an important biological reality. Women also produce testosterone, and it plays important roles throughout the body.

Although blood concentrations are typically about ten to 15 times lower than in men, testosterone remains biologically active in women.

Women make testosterone in their ovaries and adrenal glands, and the body also makes it by changing other hormones in fat, skin and muscle. Some of this testosterone is then used to make oestradiol, the main form of oestrogen in women of reproductive age.

But testosterone is not simply an oestrogen reservoir. It also acts directly on tissues throughout the body, including the bones, muscles, heart and blood vessels, and the brain. This has led researchers to look more closely at how testosterone may affect women’s health.

Similar to men, testosterone declines gradually across the reproductive lifespan, although patterns vary between individuals. This fall begins well before menopause, and unlike oestrogen, it doesn’t fall sharply at menopause as the ovaries decline.

Measuring how far it’s fallen is its own problem. Female levels are so low that routine blood tests have historically struggled to measure them reliably, making it hard to precisely define “normal” concentrations.

So why are increasing numbers of women interested in testosterone therapy after menopause?

What the evidence says

Because testosterone is known to influence sexual desire, one of its most studied uses in women is for hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) – persistent low sexual desire that causes distress.

A 2019 meta-analysis of 36 randomised trials found that carefully dosed testosterone can improve sexual desire and satisfaction in some postmenopausal women. International clinical guidelines recognise testosterone therapy as an evidence-based treatment for HSDD, the only condition in women for which there is enough clinical evidence to recommend testosterone therapy.

Sexual desire is shaped by relationships, stress, fatigue and mental health as much as by any single hormone. Testosterone is one input among several rather than a master switch.

Beyond sexual desire, high-quality clinical trial evidence in women is largely absent. But this does not necessarily mean testosterone has no broader influence on women’s health.

Randomised trials are the best way to establish whether a treatment causes a particular effect, but they cannot capture everything that happens in everyday medical practice. Patients may have other health problems or take several medicines, making it harder to know whether an improvement is due to testosterone or something else.

Testosterone is not a replacement for standard menopause hormone therapy. When it is prescribed, it is usually alongside oestrogen – and sometimes progesterone. Some women report that even after their conventional HRT (hormone replacement therapy) has been optimised, they still do not feel that their symptoms are fully addressed, and that adding testosterone makes a noticeable difference.

Women and doctors using testosterone in routine menopause care report improvements beyond sexual function. A recent UK study of 510 women at a specialist menopause clinic found that after four months on testosterone gel, women reported improvements in mood, cognitive symptoms and libido. These findings are interesting, but do not prove that the testosterone treatment caused these changes.

Real-world evidence should not replace randomised trials, but neither should the absence of large trials mean that these observations be simply dismissed. Instead, they can help identify effects worth testing in the clinical trials that are still needed.

A market that’s only just catching up

The evidence for using testosterone in women is strongest for sexual desire, but products made specifically for women have been much slower to arrive. In the US, for example, there’s still no approved testosterone product for women.

Of the three major sex hormones produced by the ovaries, oestrogen and progesterone have widely licensed products for women. Testosterone has been much slower to follow, with female-specific products still limited in many countries. This is despite evidence that testosterone can be used safely in women when given at doses designed to keep levels within the physiological female range.

International guidelines have recognised the lack of suitable products for women and called for testosterone treatments designed specifically for them. The issue is now receiving attention from regulators. In September 2026, the US Food and Drug Administration held a public workshop examining evidence gaps and the need for future drug development in this area.

Australia has led the way with Androfeme, a testosterone cream, being formally registered in 2020, specifically for female use. The UK granted it a marketing authorisation in July 2025, but it is not yet routinely available through the NHS.

The workaround has been men’s gel, measuring out a tenth of a sachet by eye. This is a less precise way to deliver a hormone for which the therapeutic dose is so small. If too much is applied, testosterone can rise above the desired range, increasing the likelihood of side-effects, such as acne and increased facial or body hair.

More importantly, evidence on the long-term safety of testosterone in women remains limited, particularly for heart disease, stroke and breast cancer, because trials have generally been short and often excluded women at higher risk of these conditions.

Demand continues to climb despite these uncertainties. NHS prescriptions to women in England rose roughly tenfold between 2015 and 2022, and in the US, testosterone prescribing has almost tripled over the past decade. The need for licensed female-specific testosterone products cannot be ignored, not just to improve access but to allow testosterone in women to be studied with the same scientific rigour it deserves.

Daniel Kelly, Senior Lecturer in Biochemistry, Sheffield Hallam University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

Coffee’s Biological Benefits Linked to Metabolic Health and Sex Hormones

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Porapak Apichodilok on Pexels

Coffee is one of the world’s most widely consumed beverages, and previous research has linked its consumption to a lower risk of conditions such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. However, the biological mechanisms behind these benefits remain unclear. A new Finnish study links habitual coffee consumption to healthier body composition and metabolic markers, while revealing distinct associations with sex hormones in men and women.

The study, conducted at the University of Oulu, analysed data from 2264 participants aged 46 in the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966. Researchers examined how habitual coffee consumption was associated with circulating metabolites, cardiometabolic risk markers and sex hormones.

Despite having a similar body mass index (BMI), individuals with higher coffee consumption had lower total and visceral fat and greater skeletal muscle mass than those who consumed less coffee.

In both men and women, higher coffee consumption was correlated with lower circulating levels of branched-chain amino acids, biomarkers that have previously been linked to insulin resistance and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes when chronically elevated.

The strongest sex-specific associations were observed in men. Higher coffee consumption was linked to a more favourable glucose–insulin profile, higher concentrations of total and bioavailable testosterone, and increased levels of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG). At the same time, free testosterone and the free androgen index were modestly lower. In women, hormonal associations were more limited and were primarily characterised by higher SHBG and lower measures of free androgens.

“Coffee is consumed by millions of people every day, yet we still know surprisingly little about how it relates to our metabolism and hormones. What stood out in our findings was a distinct hormonal signature that didn’t disappear even after we took into account BMI and lifestyle factors, with several of these associations differing between men and women,” says Luca Verroest, lead author of the study and Doctoral Researcher at the University of Oulu.

The results suggest that hormonal pathways may partly explain the relationship between coffee consumption and metabolic health. However, as this was an observational study, the findings demonstrate associations rather than cause-and-effect relationships.

The study is particularly relevant in Finland, one of the world’s highest coffee-consuming countries, where annual consumption averages around 11.8 kilograms per person.

The researchers say the findings provide a foundation for future studies aimed at determining whether coffee itself drives these biological changes and identifying the compounds responsible. These questions are currently being investigated in animal models, with the long-term goal of progressing to human intervention studies. Further research will be needed before the findings could inform dietary recommendations.

The study, Associations of habitual coffee intake with testosterone and cardiometabolic markers: the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 study, has been published in the European Journal of Nutrition on 16 July 2026.

Source: University of Oulu

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

New Study Reveals that Sex Hormones Reset Circadian Clocks

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Cottonbro on Pexels

The findings may shed new light on disruptions to the circadian clocks during menstruation, pregnancy and menopause

Disruptions to circadian clocks can lead to a wide range of health problems, from sleep disturbances to diabetes and cancer. But there has been no certainty about the identity of the body’s substances that can “shift” these clocks forward or backward and, when altered, potentially cause such disruptions.

A new study from Prof Gad Asher’s lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science, now published in Nature Communications, reveals that sex hormones play a central role in aligning the cellular clocks with one another and with the environment. The research team, led by Drs Gal Manella, Saar Ezagouri and Nityanand Bolshette, showed that female sex hormones – especially progesterone – together with the stress hormone cortisol, have a dramatic effect on the clocks.

It is already known that circadian clocks are affected not only by external signals such as sunlight but also by signals carried through the bloodstream. Until now, however, these blood-borne signals had not been fully mapped, and there was no certainty about the component within the clock that serves as their “point of entry.” The reason: Researchers lacked a precise method for tracking the clock’s response to different signals over a full 24-hour cycle.

In recent years, Prof Asher’s lab – an international leader in studying the molecular mechanisms of circadian clocks – developed an ingenious method that uses an array of human cells each representing a different “time of day.” It resembles a wall lined with clocks showing the current time in major cities around the world. The new approach enabled the researchers, for the first time and with unprecedented precision, to map how the cellular clocks are synchronized by blood-borne signals.

In addition to uncovering the influence of sex hormones, the study revealed that the clock component receiving these signals is the protein Cry2, rather than Per2, as previously believed.

The “ticking” of a circadian clock inside a human cell over the course of 24 hours. A fluorescent marker allows scientists to tell “what time it is” at any given moment

“The levels of sex hormones change throughout life – during menstrual cycles, pregnancy, hormone therapy, contraceptive use and various disease states. These conditions are also known to be associated with disturbances to circadian clocks,” Asher notes. “Our new findings suggest that these disturbances are linked to interactions between sex hormones and the mechanisms that synchronize circadian clocks.”

Source: Weizmann Institute of Science

Categories : Obstetrics & GynaecologyTags :

Helpful Hormone – Prolactin Helps Mothers Keep Cool During Pregnancy

On By ModernMedia
Otago researchers have found the hormone prolactin plays an important role in regulating body temperature during pregnancy. Credit: University of Otago

Prolactin supports milk production and stimulates caregiving behaviour in mothers, now a University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka study has found that this key pregnancy hormone also regulates body temperature during pregnancy.

Senior author Dr Rosie Brown, of the Department of Physiology, says adjusting body temperature is a critical function of the central nervous system and is vital to keep both mum and baby healthy.

The study, published in Cell Reports, has shown that prolactin acts within the brain’s hypothalamus to help regulate core body temperature throughout gestation.

“The body needs to function differently to cope during pregnancy – early on core body temperature rapidly elevates, likely because of rising progesterone levels, then increased metabolic heat occurs thanks to foetal growth, maternal tissue growth, and greater food intake,” Dr Brown says.

A mother must lose this extra metabolic heat both for herself and for her developing offspring.

“Despite all these thermal pressures, core body temperature actually reduces in late pregnancy, and we now know it is prolactin which helps keep a mum cool.

“This seems to be an important change to promote heat loss and to, ultimately, provide a safe environment for the foetus, as hyperthermia can impact brain development.”

Dr Brown says the finding provides better understanding of how the changing hormones of pregnancy and lactation act in the maternal brain to alter how the body functions and promote survival and wellbeing of a mother and her offspring.

“Obviously, that helps us understand what is happening at a cellular level during pregnancy, but understanding adaptable changes in body temperature in mammals may also be critical for animal reproduction in a world facing climate change.

“The prolactin pathway in the brain may be a mechanism that helps mammals adapt to future thermal challenges.”

Source: University of Otago

Categories : Obstetrics & Gynaecology Pain ManagementTags :

Oestrogen and Progesterone Stimulate the Body to Make Opioids

On By ModernMedia
Source: Pixabay CC0

Female hormones can suppress pain by making immune cells near the spinal cord produce opioids, a new study from researchers at UC San Francisco has found. This stops pain signals before they get to the brain.

The discovery could help with developing new treatments for chronic pain. It may explain why some painkillers work better for women than men and why postmenopausal women, whose bodies produce less of the key hormones oestrogen and progesterone, experience more pain.

The work reveals an entirely new role for T regulatory immune cells (T-regs), which are known for their ability to reduce inflammation.

“The fact that there’s a sex-dependent influence on these cells – driven by oestrogen and progesterone – and that it’s not related at all to any immune function is very unusual,” said Elora Midavaine, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow and first author of the study, which appears in Science.

The researchers looked at T-regs in the protective layers that encase the brain and spinal cord in mice. Until now, scientists thought these tissue layers, called the meninges, only served to protect the central nervous system and eliminate waste. T-regs were only discovered there in recent years.

“What we are showing now is that the immune system actually uses the meninges to communicate with distant neurons that detect sensation on the skin,” said Sakeen Kashem, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of dermatology. “This is something we hadn’t known before.”

That communication begins when a neuron, often near the skin, receives a stimulus and sends a signal to the spinal cord.

The team found that the meninges surrounding the lower part of the spinal cord harbour an abundance of T-regs. To learn what their function was, the researchers knocked the cells out with a toxin.

The effect was striking: Without the T-regs, female mice became more sensitive to pain, while male mice did not. This sex-specific difference suggested that female mice rely more on T-regs to manage pain.

“It was both fascinating and puzzling,” said Kashem, who co-led the study with Allan Basbaum, PhD. “It actually made me sceptical initially.”

Further experiments revealed a relationship between T-regs and female hormones that no one had seen before: Estrogen and progesterone were prompting the cells to churn out enkephalin, a naturally occurring opioid.

Exactly how the hormones do this is a question the team hopes to answer in a future study. But even without that understanding, the awareness of this sex-dependent pathway is likely to lead to much-needed new approaches for treating pain.

In the short run, it may help physicians choose medications that could be more effective for a patient, depending on their sex. Certain migraine treatments, for example, are known to work better on women than men.

This could be particularly helpful for women who have gone through menopause and no longer produce oestrogen and progesterone, many of whom experience chronic pain.

The researchers have begun looking into the possibility of engineering T-regs to produce enkephalin on a constant basis in both men and women.

Source: University of California – San Francisco

Categories : AgeingTags :

Hormones may Hold Therapeutic Potential to Prevent Wrinkles and Greying

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Ravi Patel on Unsplash

Hormones may be leveraged to treat and prevent signs of aging such as wrinkles and hair greying, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society journal Endocrine Reviews.

Until now, only a limited number of hormones, mainly topical retinoids (retinol and tretinoin) and oestrogen which is typically used to treat side effects of menopause, have been used in clinical practice as anti-skin aging compounds. This study reviews a new class of hormones and their anti-aging properties.

“Our paper highlights key hormone players that orchestrate pathways of skin aging such as degradation of connective tissue (leading to wrinkling), stem cell survival and loss of pigment (leading to hair greying),” said lead author Markus Böhm, MD, of the University of Münster in Germany. “Some of the hormones we studied have anti-aging properties and may be used in the future as agents to prevent skin aging.”

The skin is the largest organ and undergoes both intrinsic (chronological) and extrinsic aging which is caused by environmental factors such as sun exposure.

“Skin is not only a target for various hormones that control pathways of skin aging but itself is certainly the largest and richest site for hormone production besides classical endocrine glands,” Böhm said.

To better understand the connection between hormones and skin aging, the researchers studied the pivotal hormones controlling skin aging, including insulin-like growth factor 1, growth hormone, oestrogens, retinoids and melatonin. Melatonin is especially interesting as a potential anti-skin aging substance as it is a small molecule, inexpensive, well-tolerated and a direct and indirect antioxidant as well as a regulator of mitochondrial metabolism. Some of the studied hormones, moreover, have astonishing and unexpected biological effects on skin function and hair aging as highlighted by distinct genetic deficiency syndromes.

They also reviewed the emerging roles of additional endocrine players, including α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (responsible for skin pigmentation), members of the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis, oxytocin, endocannabinoids (found in CBD products) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor modulators and found they have very promising effects, eg on UV-induced genotoxic stress crucially involved in the development of photoaging and pigment synthesis within skin and hair.

“Further research into these hormones may offer opportunities to develop new therapeutics for treating and preventing skin aging,” Böhm said.

Source: The Endocrine Society

Categories : Cardiovascular Disease Obstetrics & GynaecologyTags :

The Risks of Various Menopausal Hormone Treatments Vary

On By ModernMedia
Photo by cottonbro studio:

Researchers have analysed the effects of seven different hormone treatments for menopausal symptoms, and the risk of blood clots, stroke and heart attack. The risks differ depending on the active substance and how the medicine is taken, according to the study findings which appear in the BMJ. In this world’s largest and most comprehensive study of currently prescribed hormonal substances, researchers analysed the risks for one million women aged 50–58.

“There is concern among women that menopausal hormone therapy increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. This concern is based on older studies conducted more than 20 years ago that only looked at one type of treatment. Since then, many new preparations have been introduced and our study shows that the previous conclusions do not apply to all types of treatments,” says Therese Johansson, postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study, which was part of her thesis at Uppsala University.

To counteract the health effects of menopause, such as hot flashes and osteoporosis, women may be prescribed hormone replacement therapy which consists of hormones or hormone-like substances.

Treatment available since the 1970s

In Sweden alone, hundreds of thousands of women currently use hormone replacement therapy and this type of treatment has been available since the 1970s. At that time, there was only one type of hormone replacement therapy and when a major study in the 1990s showed that it increased the risk of cardiovascular disease, its use rapidly declined. Since then, new preparations have entered the market, and following this, the use of hormone replacement therapy in connection with menopause has increased significantly in recent years.

In the new study, the researchers looked at seven different types of currently used hormone replacement treatments, administered via tablets, hormone patches or hormone-releasing IUDs. The study is based on all prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy in Sweden from 2007 to 2020 and covers nearly one million women aged 50 to 58. The women were monitored for two years after starting hormone replacement therapy. The risk of blood clots and cardiovascular disease was compared between women who had and had not collected a prescription medicine for hormone replacement therapy.

Different therapies, different risks

The results show clearly that the risks of hormone replacement therapy vary depending on the type of treatment.

For example, the synthetic hormone tibolone, which mimics the effects of the body’s natural hormones, was linked to an increased risk of both heart attack and stroke, but not to an increased risk of blood clots. The risk of heart attack or stroke due to tibolone is estimated at one in a thousand women.

Combined preparations containing both oestrogen and progesterone instead increase the risk of blood clots, including deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. The researchers estimate that the risk of deep vein thrombosis resulting from this combined preparation is about 7000 women per year.

“It is important that both doctors and women are aware of the risks of menopausal hormone therapy and, in particular, that the existing drugs carry different risks of blood clots and cardiovascular disease. Tibolone in particular was associated with an increased risk of stroke and heart attack. Tibolone is used in Europe but is not approved in countries such as the United States. We hope that our study will lead to the drug being withdrawn from use here as well,” says Åsa Johansson, research group leader at Uppsala University and SciLifeLab, and the study’s senior author.

During the period of the study, 2007–2020, a roughly 50% increase hormone patch use was observed, and these preparations were not linked to the same higher risk. The increased use of safer alternatives, such as patches, is an important step forward in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease among menopausal women.

Identify individual increased risk

“The next step in our research will be to develop strategies to identify which women are at increased risk of certain diseases in connection with using hormonal drugs. In this way, we can guide patients to the most appropriate medicine for each individual and drastically reduce the number of side effects,” Åsa Johansson says.

Source: Uppsala University

Categories : NeurologyTags :

How Oestrogen can Trigger Nerve Impulses in Milliseconds

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Julian Jagtenberg on Pexels

Oestrogen, the major female ovarian hormone, can trigger nerve impulses within milliseconds to regulate a variety of physiological processes. At Baylor College of Medicine, Louisiana State University and collaborating institutions, researchers discovered that oestrogen’s fast actions are mediated by the coupling of the oestrogen receptor-alpha (ER-alpha) with an ion channel protein called Clic1.

Clic1 controls the fast flux of electrically charged chloride ions through the cell membrane, which neurons use for receiving, conducting and transmitting signals. The researchers propose that interacting with the ER-alpha-Clic1 complex enables oestrogen to trigger fast neuronal responses through Clic1 ion currents. The study appeared in Science Advances.

“Oestrogen can act in the brain to regulate a variety of physiological processes, including female fertility, sexual behaviours, mood, reward, stress response, cognition, cardiovascular activities and body weight balance. Many of these functions are mediated by oestrogen binding to one of its receptors, ER-alpha,” said co-corresponding author Dr Yong Xu, professor of pediatrics – nutrition and associate director for basic sciences at the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor. 

Fast and slow

It is well known that, upon stimulation by oestrogen, ER-alpha enters the cell nucleus where it mediates the transcription of genes. This classical mode of action as a nuclear receptor takes minutes to hours.

“Oestrogen also can change the firing activity of neurons in a manner of milliseconds, but it was not clear how this happens,” Xu said. “In this case, it did not make sense to us that the minutes-long nuclear receptor function of ER-alpha was involved in such a rapid action. We explored the possibility that ion channels, proteins in the cell membrane that regulate the fast flux of ions, mediated oestrogen’s quick actions.”

In the current study, working with cell lines and animal models, the team searched for cell membrane proteins that interact with ER-alpha. They found that protein Clic1, for chloride intracellular channel protein-1, can physically interact with ER-alpha. Clic1has been implicated in the regulation of neuronal excitability, so the researchers considered it a candidate to mediate oestrogen-triggered fast actions.

“We discovered that oestrogen enhances Clic1-mediated ion currents, and eliminating oestrogen reduced such currents,” Xu said. “In addition, Clic1 currents are required for oestrogen to induce rapid responses in neurons. Also, disrupting the Clic1 gene in animal models blunted oestrogen regulation of female body weight balance.”

The findings suggest that other nuclear receptors could also interact with ion channels, a possibility the researchers look forward to studying in the future.

“This study was conducted with female mice. However, Clic1 is also present in males. We are interested in investigating its role in male physiology,” Xu said.

Chloride channels are not as well studied as other ion channels, such as potassium, sodium or calcium channels. “We are among the first to study the role Clic1 plays in female physiology,” Xu said. “We hope that our findings will inspire other groups in the field to expand these promising investigations.”

Source: Baylor College of Medicine

Categories : CancerTags :

Oestrogens are Implicated in More than Just Breast Cancers

On By ModernMedia
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Oestrogens are known to drive tumour growth in breast cancer cells that carry its receptors, but a new study by Duke Cancer Institute researchers unexpectedly finds that oestrogens play a role in fuelling the growth of breast cancers without the receptors, as well as numerous other cancers.

Writing in the journal Science Advances, the researchers describe how oestrogens not only decrease the ability of the immune system to attack tumours, but also reduce the effectiveness of immunotherapies that are used to treat many cancers, notably triple-negative breast cancers. Triple-negative breast cancers are an aggressive form of disease that are negative for oestrogen, progesterone, and the HER2 receptor proteins.

Informed by retrospective analysis of patient data and experiments in mice, the researchers found that anti-oestrogen drugs reversed the effects of oestrogens, restoring potency to immunotherapies.

“The treatment for triple-negative breast cancer has been greatly improved with the advent of immunotherapy,” said senior author Donald McDonnell, PhD, professor at Duke University School of Medicine.

“Developing ways to increase the anti-cancer activity of immunotherapies is a primary goal of our research,” McDonnell said. “Here we have found a simple way bolster the effectiveness of immunotherapy for this type of breast cancer and the benefit was even seen in other cancers, including melanoma and colon cancers.”

McDonnell and colleagues, including lead author Sandeep Artham, a postdoctoral associate in the McDonnell lab, focused on a type of white blood cell called eosinophils, which are typically activated during allergic reactions and inflammatory diseases.

Eosinophils have recently been identified as important in tumours, and a phenomenon called tumour associated tissue eosinophilia, or TATE, is associated with better outcomes among patients with multiple types of cancer, including colon, oesophageal, gastric, oral, melanoma and liver cancers.

In their studies, the Duke team described how oestrogens decrease the number of eosinophils and TATE in mice. The hormone contributes to increased tumour growth in oestrogen receptor-negative breast cancer tumours and in melanoma tumours, which do not rely on oestrogen receptors for tumour growth.

Conversely, anti-oestrogen therapies inhibited oestrogen receptor signalling and enhanced the efficacy of immunotherapies, slowing tumour growth.

“These findings highlight the importance of oestrogen-receptor signalling as a regulator of eosinophil biology and TATE and highlight the potential near-term clinical application of anti-oestrogen drugs to increase the benefits of immunotherapies in multiple tumour types,” McDonnell said.

He said clinical trials are being planned using an investigational anti-oestrogen drug called lasofoxifene among patients with triple-negative breast cancers.

Source: Duke University Medical Center

Categories : Injury & Trauma Obstetrics & GynaecologyTags :

Menstrual Cycle Phases Linked to Increased Injury Risk for Female Athletes

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Ashley Williams

Football players in England’s top-tier WSL were six times more likely to experience a muscle injury in the days leading up to their period compared to when they were on their period, according to a new study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.

This the first prospective longitudinal study monitoring menstrual cycles alongside injuries in female footballers. The findings suggest there could be increased injury risk windows at particular times in the cycle.

Despite being a relatively small sample size, the data demonstrates the need to consider the menstrual cycle in elite sports, to reduce injury risk and to support the wellbeing of athletes.

Menstrual cycle symptoms are common and around two thirds of elite athletes feel that these can have negative impacts on their performance. There has been little previous research tracking injuries alongside the menstrual cycle in female sport, despite much speculation and anecdotal evidence suggesting that there may be some key times for increased injury risk. Given the increased professionalism, interest, growth, and investment in women’s sport, the authors say further research in this area is needed.

In this study, researchers at UCL and the University of Bath recorded time-loss injuries and menstrual cycle data for elite female football players across three seasons. All of the players were based at one Women’s Super League (WSL) club, the top tier of women’s football in England. During the study they tracked 593 cycles across 13 390 days, in which time 26 players experienced 74 injuries.

The authors divided each cycle into four main phases in their study. Each phase comes with assumed hormonal changes that have the potential to influence different aspects of a woman’s health and wellbeing.

Ally Barlow, first author of the study from the University of Bath and a physiotherapist at the WSL club, said: “We have been tracking player’s menstrual cycles for a number of seasons to observe trends in terms of symptoms and cycle characteristics. We were interested to learn more about the potential association between injury risk across the menstrual cycle. This study set out to collect specific scientific data so that we could learn more about the menstrual cycle and player’s injury risk.”

Analysis of the data found that players were six times more likely in the pre-menstrual phase (oestrogen and progesterone decrease to bring about the onset of menstruation) and five times more likely in the early-mid luteal phase (after ovulation when both oestrogen and progesterone are assumed to increase and remain high) to experience a muscle injury, compared to when they were in the menstrual phase.

Dr Georgie Bruinvels, senior author of the study from UCL Surgery & Interventional Science and the Institute of Sport, Exercise & Health (ISEH), said: “While these results must be viewed with caution, this data highlights a need to investigate this area further. Given the growth of women’s sport it’s an exciting time to be working in female physiology, but there are a number of known challenges when conducting research with female athletes, in part explaining why there is such a significant sex data gap.

“Conducting large-scale research is complex but must be prioritised to best support female athletes, and we hope studies like this will pave the way for this. Every woman has their own unique physiology, so it’s crucial to support and empower them in the right ways. If future research demonstrates that there are risk windows for certain injury types, we should be proactive in mitigating these risks to enable female athletes to exercise and compete on any given day.”

The authors emphasise that further data collected in a standardised manner is needed before the sports science community can start to look for biological explanations for this increased injury risk.

Dr Jo Blodgett, an author of the study from UCL Surgery & Interventional Science and the Institute of Sport, Exercise & Health (ISEH), said: “Though our sample size for this research was relatively small, we observed clear links between cycle phase and injury prevalence, and the size of the association – six times higher in the premenstrual phase and five times higher in the early-mid luteal phase for muscular injuries – was quite large.

“To better understand the variability in injury risk across the cycle we need more players and teams to continually track injury incidence, menstrual cycle and symptoms in a standardised manner. At the elite level, injuries to your squad can mean the difference between winning and losing, the difference between being crowned champions and runners-up. But perhaps more importantly, it means pain and suffering for players that could perhaps be avoided with better player-centred support.”

Source: University College London