Why Losing Your Period Is No Small Matter
It’s not your body; it’s you
Many young female athletes fail to understand the extent to which a loss of menstruation, or hypothalamic amenorrhea, impacts their health.
We may consider our missed periods to be a regular part of an athletic lifestyle when the reality is that amenorrhea is a warning sign that something is going wrong in the body.
Actually, hypothalamic amenorrhea is a sign that there are a number of things that are going wrong in the body.
We just don’t realize this because, unfortunately, most athletes, regardless of their gender or age, aren’t educated about the consequences of undereating and/or overtraining.
We aren’t told that we need a certain amount of body fat for our bodies to function, that we can’t just expect our bodies to survive on lean muscle.
So, most of us remain blissfully unaware of the irreparable damage that we are doing to ourselves . . . until a sudden health crisis reveals the true extent to which we have harmed ourselves.
For much of my adolescence, I was the fastest person I knew. I had incredible stamina; my endurance seemed infinite. My abs and arms were toned; I was lean and muscular but not overly so.
I had the thing that so many people aspire towards: an incredible level of fitness.
But I had paid the price.
An enormous price.
When I lost my period, I didn’t see it as a huge problem. In fact, it was kind of nice; who wants to deal with a monthly menstrual cycle, anyway?
Unfortunately, I didn’t know then what I do know now:
It’s about more than just your period.
If the body isn’t making enough estrogen, there is a severe hormonal imbalance that will negatively impact not only the reproductive system but the entire body.
A lack of estrogen damages the brain, heart, and bones, not to mention the entire endocrine system. Because, despite popular opinion, the female body doesn’t require a monthly menstrual cycle just for fertility; a period is a signal of hormonal balance.
When this balance is disturbed, there are serious health consequences.
There is a multitude of ways that hypothalamic amenorrhea, or loss of menstruation, harms the human body.
When there is a lack of energy in the body due to over-exercising and/or under-fueling, the body is in a state of extreme stress.
The human body responds by lowering estrogen production, leaving the body in a state of estrogen deficiency. This dramatically increases the risk for cardiovascular diseases like atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, as estrogen plays a vital role in cardiovascular health.
This means that a lack of estrogen directly decreases heart health. Menstrual irregularities also increase the likelihood of earlier menopause, which further increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Additionally, estrogen is critical for bone formation; a lack of estrogen inhibits bone growth, decreasing bone mineral density.
This greatly increases the chance for the development of osteopenia and, eventually, full-blown osteoporosis.
Bone health is also affected by increased cortisol that is present in females with hypothalamic amenorrhea; excess cortisol further prevents bone formation while also inhibiting vitamin D absorption.
Therefore, a lack of estrogen dramatically increases the chance of severe bone damage while also disrupting appetite and metabolism.
Estrogen Deficiency Also Causes a Decline in Brain Health.
Estrogen plays multiple roles in the human brain, including preventing neurological aging, enhancing cognition, and preventing synaptic decline.
Low estrogen production — a result of the body’s state of energy deficiency — results in increased neurological degeneration. Estrogen deficiency reduces brain function by inhibiting the formation of synapses. This leads to impaired learning and cognition, brain fog, and a decline in memory.
It also accelerates neuronal aging, which increases the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, along with other neurodegenerative diseases.
In addition, the disruption of neurotransmitters — like dopamine and serotonin — dramatically increases the risk of depression, anxiety, and other psychological disorders.
Essentially, hypothalamic amenorrhea poses a serious threat to the brain, bones, heart, and entire body.
It negatively affects your mood and thinking, jeopardizes your heart and bone health, and literally damages your brain.
So, in this case, what doesn’t kill you does not make you stronger.
What doesn’t kill you makes you more likely to have a stress fracture, heart attack, neurological illness, and/or another major health issue.
As someone who has dealt with hypothalamic amenorrhea for more than a decade, I wish I had understood the extent to which I was damaging my body by under-fueling and over-exercising.
I wish I had changed my habits earlier so that I wouldn’t have allowed my mind and body to suffer so severely.
Hypothalamic amenorrhea is not a light matter. It is not just about a few missed periods.
However, by resting and by eating enough to get your body out of a state of energy deficiency, it is possible to prevent further physiological and psychological damage.
By recovering from hypothalamic amenorrhea and regaining your period, you heal not only your body, but your mind as well.
