Medicine and science in sports and exercise
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Med Sci Sports Exerc · Oct 2007
American College of Sports Medicine position stand. The female athlete triad.
The female athlete triad (Triad) refers to the interrelationships among energy availability, menstrual function, and bone mineral density, which may have clinical manifestations including eating disorders, functional hypothalamic amenorrhea, and osteoporosis. With proper nutrition, these same relationships promote robust health. Athletes are distributed along a spectrum between health and disease, and those at the pathological end may not exhibit all these clinical conditions simultaneously. ⋯ Nutrition counseling and monitoring are sufficient interventions for many athletes, but eating disorders warrant psychotherapy. Athletes with eating disorders should be required to meet established criteria to continue exercising, and their training and competition may need to be modified. No pharmacological agent adequately restores bone loss or corrects metabolic abnormalities that impair health and performance in athletes with functional hypothalamic amenorrhea.