The Food Medic - Ask Dr Hazel E9: HOW DOES THE PILL IMPACT TRAINING AND RECOVERY?

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

This episode covers the impact of the combined contraceptive pill on performance, training and recovery from exercise. To read more visit www.thefoodmedic.co.ukLink to the research: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32666247/If you loved this episode make sure to give it a review, rating (hopefully 5 stars) and share it with your friends and family. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi Hazel, my name is Ruth. I have been a long-term fan of the podcast and everything Food Medic. My question is around the increase in discussion and emerging research related to the menstrual cycle and how this interacts with training, with nutrition, with recovery etc etc which I think is fantastic. I think it's brilliant that there is more conversation and more research in this area however as someone who is on the pill sometimes this can all feel a little bit unrelatable so my question is around how the pill interacts with training recovery and whether this completely writes off any impacts that a normal menstrual cycle would have or whether there are other impacts that the pill can have on these things thank you hey ruth great question and yes you're

correct in that when we do have these conversations we're largely discussing naturally cycling women so women who are not on any form of hormonal contraception, which obviously leaves out a huge proportion of women. So I absolutely hear you. So as you know, there are many different types of hormonal contraception and each work in a slightly different way. So they may have progesterone and oestrogen known as combined contraception such as the pill or progesterone only contraception options. Now the combined pill works by suppressing the natural estrogen and progesterone in our bodies which means that the hormonal fluctuation that would occur with a regular cycle doesn't happen and because of this altered hormonal profile it's likely that hormonal

contraception might influence how women perform train and recover compared to those who are not on hormonal contraception but what does the evidence say well basically what we know is not very much and it's very conflicting but that said a recent systematic review and meta-analysis by Kirsty Elliott Sale who has published lots of papers in this field found that some women who use oral contraceptives might see a very small decline in their performance compared to naturally menstruating women however the effect size was small and the studies weren't great quality. So the authors really did emphasize that the focus should be on the individual's response, as some people may experience no performance side effects at all. They also found that there was no

difference in performance between pill taking and pill-free days. Now Now in terms of strength training studies typically found that there are no differences in adaptation to strength training with oral contraceptive pill use compared to non-use. So some studies found a positive effect other studies found a negative effect and really what this means is you're likely to reap the same benefits from training whether you're on the pill or not. Then in terms of recovery there is some evidence to suggest that recovery following training might be affected by pill use although again studies have found varying results. So overall because of the lack of research and the amount of conflicting research it's really difficult to make general recommendations on the use of hormonal contraception for women when it comes to exercising and the question of whether the pill helps or hinders our performance

and our training and recovery is really unanswered and even if there is an effect it's likely to be small so my advice is to just listen to your own body and if you have any questions about your choice of hormonal contraceptive use or if you're experiencing any issues with it then please do speak to a healthcare professional like your GP. If you want to read more about this topic head over to thefoodmedic.co.uk where we cover this topic in much more detail in one of our articles thanks again for your question that's all from me if anyone listening would like to ask a question for a chance to feature on the podcast please send your voice recorded questions to ellie at thefoodmedic.co.uk and i'll see you again next time