Hey ladies, are you working out 4+ times a week, fasting until noon, then exercising on an empty stomach, and topping it off by drinking a low-carb protein shake to help your recovery for your weight management routine? How is that working out for you?
That is what the “trendy experts” suggest, right? But is this leaving you feeling anxious, exhausted, bloated, and lethargic? Are you struggling with your weight management and fitness goals, while your male counterparts who are doing the same things are looking and feeling great? Do you ever wonder why? Let’s discuss women’s health and research a little to get to those answers.
When it comes to women’s health, even though women account for nearly half of the global population and outnumber men in America since 1946, women have unfortunately been underrepresented in studies, with doctors and researchers considering women’s bodies to be “atypical” and men’s to be the “norm” throughout history. Research largely focused on men, how they should eat, sleep, and exercise more effectively, which also applies to testing medications and when conducting clinical trials. When the findings from trials are released, these recommendations are used to make guidelines for everyone to follow.
However, women are not men; both have their own reproductive organs, biochemistry, bone structure, brain structure, metabolism, and cycles, as well as hormonal, physiological, and aging processes, which all impact how our bodies react to advice and recommendations. It should come as no surprise that the outcome of this oversight to women’s health has been far from ideal, with women, for example, experiencing adverse effects from medications at twice the rate of men.
A Step in the Right Direction for Women’s Health
In 1993, Congress ruled that women are required to be included in clinical trials, but despite this, 75% of medical research is still based on men, and pre-1993 outdated data continues to be a burden on health guidelines. For example, heart disease is the leading cause of death in America for both sexes, but the medical field only recognized that women experience different symptoms when the American Heart Association published a guide in 1999. Once again, despite the separate biological differences, women are still less likely to receive the appropriate prevention and management of heart disease due to gender bias.
“There’s still science that we don’t know,” says Barbara Bierer, MD, a hematologist, oncologist and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, as well as the faculty director of the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School (MRCT Center), a research and policy group focused on improving clinical trials. “These are issues that are very important that do affect a product’s safety and effectiveness.”
“Women shouldn’t be [put] in a ‘special populations’ category,” adds Martha Gulati, MD, a cardiologist at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, and director of prevention and associate director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center and president of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology. “It’s important to study women to find out how to care for [51%] of the population. We are the majority of the population. So, although women are special, we are not a ‘special population.’”
Focusing More on Women’s Health
Fast forward to modern day, and researchers have begun to focus more on women’s health. In 2016, the NIH instituted a policy requiring any research with their funding to collect data on biological sex differences in preclinical research and animal testing, analyze the data, and report on differences in the findings. According to the policy, “Appropriate analysis and transparent reporting of data by sex may therefore enhance the rigor and applicability of preclinical biomedical research.”
Even with this late start, many aspects of women’s health have made progress. However, when it comes to understanding and properly treating disease, there is still much room for improvement to achieve equality, particularly for women of color.
Trends That May Impact Women’s Health Poorly
Cold Plunges
Submerging your body in cold water is suggested to boost workout recovery, reduce inflammation, and strengthen your body’s stress response. However, women have more body fat, which vasodilates to control core temperatures, making women more sensitive to exposure to cold temperatures. Meaning that temperatures below 50 degrees Fahrenheit can create stronger stress responses in women than seen in men, which can put them into a sympathetic shutdown state without kick-starting any metabolic benefits. To create the same benefits men experience, women are better off to expose themselves to cool, not cold, water at around 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
Calorie Crunching
Traditionally, the calculation is to burn more calories than you consume in one day to lose weight. But when you take into account women’s metabolic fluctuations, body fat percentage, and hormones, this model is tragically outdated. Women’s higher body fat percentage requires more fuel to fight stress; cutting calories without being replaced with healthier options can cause nutritional deficiencies and dysregulate the thyroid, putting women into a “starvation mode,” causing the body to store more fat. Not to mention the mental effort causes more stress, possibly leading to binge eating or other eating disorders, obsessive thinking, and burnout. Women should avoid this trend. Instead, focus on food quality with a variety of healthy, nutrient-dense choices rather than calories.
Hours of Cardio Exercise
Fitness experts traditionally recommend lifting weights to men and telling women to sweat it out with hours of cardio to elevate heart rates and breathing to stay in shape. However, women’s muscles retain fatty tissues, bones deteriorate, and stress levels elevate when only cardio is done. You don’t need to use massive weights or do strength training to the point of bulking up. But, strength/resistance training is important to women’s health to help slow bone loss, strengthen joints, lower the risk of certain cancers, reduce body fat, improve moods, boost energy, and protect brain health.
Eliminating Carbs and Neglecting Protein
Low-carb diets are portrayed as being an easy way to lose weight and boost energy. The truth is that cutting out all carbs can be detrimental to a woman’s health and performance. Without carbs, women, especially active women, can struggle to maintain blood sugar levels, fight off infection, build muscle, regulate endocrine function, and stabilize their moods.
Historically, women have been told that too much protein is bad for women’s health and that it could damage kidney health or get stored as fat. But protein may be more important to women than men due to hormone fluctuations during certain phases of the menstrual and maturation cycles, putting the body in a “catabolic state” in which it actively breaks down muscle. Women who are in the luteal phase of their period, and those who are perimenopausal or menopausal, may want to increase protein intake. Eating enough protein makes sure that the body can build and retain muscles; it is required for brain function, nerve conduction, and bone health.
Summary
Ladies, you need to fuel your body with healthy choices, especially if you are very active. Contrary to popular social media trends, carbs are not your enemy, and neither is protein. Rather than stressing out on counting/cutting caloric intake, focus on eating a variety of nutrient-dense foods to keep your body fueled and running optimally. Keep in mind that you don’t need to spend hours a day on cardio, make some time for strength/resistance training, and make sure that you are giving your body enough time to rest and recover.
This article was written by T.J. Webber at the WHN News Desk
As with anything you read on the internet, this article on women’s health should not be construed as medical advice; please talk to your doctor or primary care provider before changing your wellness routine. WHN does not agree or disagree with any of the materials posted. This article on women’s health is not intended to provide a medical diagnosis, recommendation, treatment, or endorsement. Additionally, this article on women’s health is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything. These statements on women’s health have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
