Scientific Programme
Physiology & Nutrition
IS-PN02 - Power, Breath, and Beat: Exploring Female Muscular, Pulmonary, and Cardiovascular Physiology
Date: 02.07.2025, Time: 08:00 - 09:15, Session Room: Castello 2
Description
This symposium brings together cutting-edge research on the unique aspects of female respiratory, cardiovascular, and skeletal muscle physiology, highlighting how these systems are influenced by the female sex hormonal profile. 1. Power: Skeletal Muscle Physiology will examine how the female sex hormonal profile regulates muscle mass and function in females and thereby influences training outcomes. 2. Breath: This presentation will explore how dynamic exercise impacts pulmonary gas exchange and ventilation, with a focus on sex differences in oxygen extraction, acid-base balance, and respiratory muscle function, specifically addressing the limited research on young and older women, including recent findings on pulmonary responses and diaphragm fatigue in female athletes. 3. Beat: This presentation will examine the influence of estrogen and its decline at menopause on cardiovascular health in females, highlighting the slower cardiovascular adaptations to endurance training in postmenopausal women and the importance of exercise before, during, and after menopause to counteract the decline in cardiovascular function. This symposium is relevant for physiologists, coaches, sports science researchers, and clinicians who are interested in female physiology and how the female hormones influence performance, training, and health.
Chair(s)
Mette Hansen
Aarhus University, Department of Public Health
Denmark
Speaker A
Mette Hansen
Aarhus University, Department of Public Health
Denmark
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The regulatory role of female sex hormones on skeletal muscle and adaptations to exercise training in females
Skeletal muscle mass is crucial for muscle function, metabolic health, and quality of life. In females, sex hormones play a significant role in the regulation of muscle mass. This presentation, based on human data, will demonstrate how estrogen plays a critical role in regulating muscle mass. The decline in estrogen levels during menopause is associated with reductions in muscle mass and function. Conversely, emerging human data demonstrate that estrogen enhances muscle hypertrophy during resistance training by increasing muscle protein synthesis, inhibiting muscle protein breakdown, and positively affecting satellite cell activation. Additionally, estrogen seems to have a positive influence on muscle strength. Taken together, the present data highlight that the female sex hormone profile may influence responsiveness to training. This presentation is aimed at sports scientists, exercise physiologists, healthcare professionals, and researchers interested in expanding their understanding of female-specific muscle physiology, particularly the role of estrogen in modulating skeletal muscle adaptations to exercise training.
Speaker B
Bill Sheel
University of British Columbia, School of Kinesiology
Canada
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Sex differences in the respiratory physiology of exercise
With dynamic exercise there are increases in oxygen extraction and carbon dioxide production by the contracting musculature, and with heavy exercise, there are accompanying reductions in pH. An increase in ventilation is important when considering the ability to perform exercise as it serves to maintain blood gas homeostasis and regulate acid-base balance. Despite the biological need to match ventilation to metabolic demand, much of what we know is based upon studies that have primarily focused on young healthy men, whereas the response in young and older women has received limited attention. This proposed presentation will address this scientific gap by addressing two inter-related topics. First, in young athletic males a large alveolar-to-arterial oxygen difference develops and arterial oxygen tension, and oxyhemoglobin saturation fall with heavy exercise. Different from males, females demonstrate pulmonary gas exchange decrements during submaximal exercise intensities and at lower aerobic fitness levels, but this is controversial. In addition, the female master athlete has rarely been considered in this context, and recent findings in this rarely studied group will be presented. Second, in order to generate ventilation, the diaphragm and other respiratory muscles must contract cyclically. There are reports that in young females: (i) the diaphragm is resistant to fatigue and (ii) that cardiovascular response to high levels of respiratory muscular work is attenuated. Recent work that explores the interaction(s) between high levels of respiratory muscle work, the energetics of breathing, and diaphragm fatigue in young and post-menopausal females will be presented. The target audience is anyone interested in expanding their knowledge of female-specific respiratory physiology during exercise.
Speaker C
Ylva Hellsten
University of Copenhagen, Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences
Denmark
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The influence of sex hormones on cardiovascular health and adaptations to exercise training in females
Whereas ageing is one of the strongest predictors of hypertension and cardiovascular events, physical activity is superior to any other alternative for maintaining cardiovascular integrity and health with age. Thus, although age per se is a factor, physical inactivity over many years is at least as detrimental to the cardiovascular system as is ageing. However, despite the fact that endurance training can have beneficial effects on cardiovascular health in both older males and females, evidence suggest that adaptive processes are slower in postmenopausal females compared to age matched males. The reason for this slower adaptation in older females is not fully clear but is thought to be related to the loss of estrogen at menopause. Estrogen has overall a marked impact on cardiovascular health, influencing aspects such as regulation of vascular tone, blood pressure, microvascular growth and antioxidant capacity. Consequently, when females loose estrogen at menopause, there is not only a reduced ability to adapt to training but there is also an accelerated decline in cardiovascular health. On the positive side, there is evidence indicating that; if females train at or shortly after, rather than many years after menopause, they adapt very well to training. And importantly, many of the positive effects of exercise are similar to those of estrogen. Although more research is needed in this area, these findings point at that sedentary females should be recommended to begin exercising at the menopausal transition to counteract the impact of estrogen loss. The talk addresses the influence of estrogen and estrogen loss on the cardiovascular system and the impact of exercise training in females. The target audience is anyone interested in cardiovascular physiology and in physical activity as a means of promoting healthy ageing, especially in females.