Women: Something to Consider Regarding BF%
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Thank you for posting this! :flowerforyou:0
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Bump so my FL will see it0
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This is great information! I the body fat/ amenhorrea problem when I was a teenager. Who even knows all the damage it did!0
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I'm not really concerned about my BF% (it's 50% or so-ish and getting down to a dangerous % will take more weight loss than I want), though this is something women need to think about.0
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Another study shows that those menstruating had an average BF% of ~18% compared to 16% in those with amenorrhea (lack of menstruation).
So, it definitely varies but in general...it seems that lower than 17% might pose some risks.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/94330440 -
Bumping because I think this great and important info.
As for myself? Besides breast feeding my daughter for over 2 years, I'm safe, lol
I'm at 3 years with my 2nd (my daughter) and am tandem nursing her little brother (18 months). Nursed my first for 25 months.
As it is, my cycle came back at 6 months, 5 months, and 4 months postpartum (even while exclusively breastfeeding and tandem nursing).
Regular cycle now but I would definitely be concerned if she disappeared!
Good post, OP. Thanks for sharing.0 -
True Story: my coworker used to be a dancer, she is a health nut, salad dressing is a cheat meal for her..She was trying to get pregnant and couldnt..for years..until she decided to follow the doctors advice and gain some weight/fat....She is due next month!!
YAY! Congrats to her. I am struggling with gaining ENOUGH weight to be fertile again. It's such an emotional roller coaster to feel like a foreigner in your own body...to undo really hard work BUT I have to remember that my body was never meant to fit the mold I forced it into--no one's is. ((Sigh)) You live and learn.
I am so sorry you are having a hard time with this girl...
But...take it one step at a time, dont push it, it will happen when you are ready. I know it took Jen ( my co-worker) a few years to get there. She was making small changes, like add a piece a bread to her lunch etc....
I wish you all the best.
Hugs0 -
Totally agree. I spent years chasing various "numbers" - BF%, BFI, weight, waist size...all magic numbers that I would never ever tell anyone out side of MFP anyway!!!! It's a miserable journey chasing unattainable (at least healthily) and unsustainable goals.
1. Be HAPPY
2. LOVE yourself
3. LOVE others
4. MOVE
5. REST
6. EAT (right)
7. LIFE comes first.
ALWAYS
xxx
This is wonderful! Thank-you, and thank-you OP for the great info :flowerforyou:0 -
I'd read that extended breast feeding could help prevent osteoporosis because, as with a broken bone, your body over compensates when replacing the lost calcium. I don't know if that's up-to-date information or not, but it certainly won't prevent me from breastfeeding as long as I feel appropriate.
I've also read one source that suggested that some of the effects of a low body fat percentage were actually effects of eating too little, but that was livestrong.com or something similar, so not necessarily reliable.
I do worry that the chart publicised by ACE is partly to blame, as women aim for 'essential' or 'athlete', rather than 'fitness', as they are all presented as positives.
http://www.builtlean.com/2010/08/03/ideal-body-fat-percentage-chart/0 -
Thanks for sharing. Good luck to you!0
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25 - 40% body fat on most women is extremely appealing to most men... Myself included... Less than that and it is not good as was mentioned for reproductive health and it really isn't as appealing to most men either...0
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For example, I like being 13-15% bodyfat...I feel confident and sexy BUT this is wrong. It's dangerous and has health consequences that make it less than ideal.
This is what I wanted to know I may have scanned through your original post too quickly, but I get that extremes in any direction are not good. What I was wanting to know was exactly what did you do to your body?....was it just working towards 13-15% bf while dieting?...weight training?....Please be more specific, I can be kinda slow on the uptake :laugh: 0 -
Thank you for this information. I am currently reading a body sculpting book for women and this book encourages women to aim for 12-16% BF, but going no lower than 12% at any time. I am no expert so I've been wanting to find information to counterattack this theory only to read both sides of information and to get fully informed. It's great hearing personal experiences. For myself, I have no certainty where I want to land, but I have considered probably somewhere between 18-20%, but playing by ear.
I really wish you well/luck in improving your health back to the point of where you want it to be.
Ashley0 -
25 - 40% body fat on most women is extremely appealing to most men... Myself included... Less than that and it is not good as was mentioned for reproductive health and it really isn't as appealing to most men either...
aw well *kitten*! Now I learn that i was hotter BEFORE i joined MFP!
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For example, I like being 13-15% bodyfat...I feel confident and sexy BUT this is wrong. It's dangerous and has health consequences that make it less than ideal.
This is what I wanted to know I may have scanned through your original post too quickly, but I get that extremes in any direction are not good. What I was wanting to know was exactly what did you do to your body?....was it just working towards 13-15% bf while dieting?...weight training?....Please be more specific, I can be kinda slow on the uptake :laugh:
I was as low as 11.8% and it was accomplished via diet AND working out (light weighs and cardio) now I lift heavy but the damage is already done0 -
It's actually an interesting read. I've been seeing a nutritionist who has worked in the business for 30 years. His wife is 9% body fat and still regularly menstruates and has had no other health issues. I am working on lowering my body fat now - currently he's measuring me at 16.5%, and I am on a regular 45 day cycle. It's funny, when I was at 22% during the start, I did not get regular menstrual cycles. Once I dropped down to 18% body fat, BAM, regular cycles of 45 days. Maybe it's different for everyone?
How are you being tested?0 -
*Bump*ing this thread for all the ladies. Stay healthy!0
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I actually just posted something about this on my page - I wanted to share with my FL that I have gone from over 50% BF and currently down to 34% BF.
This is just one of many things to consider other than scale numbers.0 -
I'd read that extended breast feeding could help prevent osteoporosis because, as with a broken bone, your body over compensates when replacing the lost calcium. I don't know if that's up-to-date information or not, but it certainly won't prevent me from breastfeeding as long as I feel appropriate.
I've also read one source that suggested that some of the effects of a low body fat percentage were actually effects of eating too little, but that was livestrong.com or something similar, so not necessarily reliable.
I do worry that the chart publicised by ACE is partly to blame, as women aim for 'essential' or 'athlete', rather than 'fitness', as they are all presented as positives.
http://www.builtlean.com/2010/08/03/ideal-body-fat-percentage-chart/
I was just about to post this link!
Women can be considered healthy with a body fit percent as high as 31%. That is what gave me 30% as my goal.0 -
For example, I like being 13-15% bodyfat...I feel confident and sexy BUT this is wrong. It's dangerous and has health consequences that make it less than ideal.
This is what I wanted to know I may have scanned through your original post too quickly, but I get that extremes in any direction are not good. What I was wanting to know was exactly what did you do to your body?....was it just working towards 13-15% bf while dieting?...weight training?....Please be more specific, I can be kinda slow on the uptake :laugh:
What did I do? Well I have menopausal estrogen levels which means that I don't menstruate and my bone density is likely quite low for my age (getting it checked today). I can't have kids until the issue is corrected. Low estrogen can also negatively affect your HDL/LDL ratio--which puts you at risk for cardiovascular disease. It's all a mess really.0 -
I had my kids when I weighed in the 200s (35%-40% BF)', and didn't have a regular menstrual cycle until now (27% BF). It's important to know. Women are so gun-ho and will do anything to lose weight, they forget other aspects of themselves.
Great post. :drinker:0 -
True Story: my coworker used to be a dancer, she is a health nut, salad dressing is a cheat meal for her..She was trying to get pregnant and couldnt..for years..until she decided to follow the doctors advice and gain some weight/fat....She is due next month!!
YAY! Congrats to her. I am struggling with gaining ENOUGH weight to be fertile again. It's such an emotional roller coaster to feel like a foreigner in your own body...to undo really hard work BUT I have to remember that my body was never meant to fit the mold I forced it into--no one's is. ((Sigh)) You live and learn.
I am so sorry you are having a hard time with this girl...
But...take it one step at a time, dont push it, it will happen when you are ready. I know it took Jen ( my co-worker) a few years to get there. She was making small changes, like add a piece a bread to her lunch etc....
I wish you all the best.
Hugs
Thank you! :flowerforyou:0 -
Don't know if these will help...
'Wrong'-Time Eating Reduces Fertility in Fruit Flies: Study Points to Fertility-Metabolism Connection
ScienceDaily (June 8, 2011) — Dieticians will tell you it isn't healthy to eat late at night: it's a recipe for weight gain. In fruit flies, at least, there's another consequence: reduced fertility.
That's the conclusion of a new study in Cell Metabolism by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, in which they manipulated circadian rhythms in fruit flies and measured the affect on egg-laying capacity.
Lead author Amita Sehgal, PhD, John Herr Musser Professor of Neuroscience, stresses, though, that what is true in flies grown in a lab does not necessarily hold for humans, and any potential link between diet and reproduction would have to be independently tested.
"I wouldn't say eating at the wrong time of the day makes people less fertile, though that is the implication," says Sehgal, who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. "I would say that eating at the wrong time of the day has deleterious consequences for physiology."
It's All Connected
Many aspects of animal biology cycle over the course of a day. Sleep and wakefulness, activity and rest, body temperature, and more, all fluctuate in a pattern called a circadian rhythm. Disruption of these rhythms has been shown to negatively affect physiology. Shift workers, for instance, often suffer from psychological and metabolic issues that colleagues on normal hours do not. Rodents with disrupted circadian rhythms are more likely to develop obesity.
For a while, Sehgal explains, researchers believed animals had a single master molecular clock, located in the brain, that controlled activity throughout the body. In recent years, however, they have come to understand that some individual organs also have their own, independent clocks, like townspeople who wear a wristwatch and keep it synchronized with the clock in city hall.
The mammalian liver is one organ that has its own independent clock. In 2008, Sehgal's team discovered that the fruit fly equivalent of the liver, called the fat body, has its own clock, which controls eating and food storage. They wanted to know what would happen if the fat body clock became desynchronized from the master clock in the brain.
Decoupling Clocks
First, her team asked which fly genes are controlled specifically by the fat body clock. Using gene chip microarrays, they identified 81 genes related to lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, the immune system, and reproduction that fit those criteria.
Next, the researchers attempted to decouple the fat body and central clocks by keeping the flies in constant darkness (to eliminate effects of light on these clocks) and feeding them at times when they don't normally eat. They found the two clocks could be desynchronized: disrupting the animals' feeding cycles altered the cycling of genes controlled by the fat-body clock, but not those regulated by the central clock itself itself.
Finally, the team addressed the functional consequences of this desynchronization, by counting the number of eggs the flies laid under different conditions. Flies fed at the "right" time of the day deposited about 8 eggs per day, compared to about 5 when they fed at the "wrong" time.
"Circadian desynchrony caused by feeding at the 'wrong' time of day leads to a defect in overall reproductive capacity," the authors wrote.
The next question to pursue, Sehgal says, is finding the molecular mechanism that controls this phenomenon: How does the fat body communicate with the ovaries. And, more importantly, is this effect restricted to fruit flies, or does it also occur in higher organisms, including humans.
The research was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Other authors include Penn postdoctoral fellows Kanyan Xu, Justin R. DiAngelo, and Michael E. Hughes, as well as John B. Hogenesch, associate professor of Pharmacology
and...Gum Disease Can Increase the Time It Takes to Become Pregnant
ScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2011) — Professor Roger Hart told the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology that the negative effect of gum disease on conception was of the same order of magnitude as the effect of obesity.
Periodontal (gum) disease is a chronic, infectious and inflammatory disease of the gums and supporting tissues. It is caused by the normal bacteria that exist in everyone's mouths, which, if unchecked, can create inflammation around the tooth; the gum starts to pull away from the tooth, creating spaces (periodontal pockets) that become infected. The inflammation sets off a cascade of tissue-destructive events that can pass into the circulation. As a result, periodontal disease has been associated with heart disease, type 2 diabetes, respiratory and kidney disease, and problems in pregnancy such as miscarriage and premature birth. Around 10% of the population is believed to have severe periodontal disease. Regular brushing and flossing of teeth is the best way of preventing it.
Prof Hart, who is Professor of Reproductive Medicine at the University of Western Australia (Perth, Australia) and Medical Director of Fertility Specialists of Western Australia, said: "Until now, there have been no published studies that investigate whether gum disease can affect a woman's chance of conceiving, so this is the first report to suggest that gum disease might be one of several factors that could be modified to improve the chances of a pregnancy."
The researchers followed a group 3737 pregnant women, who were taking part in a Western Australian study called the SMILE study, and they analysed information on pregnancy planning and pregnancy outcomes for 3416 of them.
They found that women with gum disease took an average of just over seven months to become pregnant -- two months longer than the average of five months that it took women without gum disease to conceive.
In addition, non-Caucasian women with gum disease were more likely to take over a year to become pregnant compared to those without gum disease: their increased risk of later conception was 13.9% compared to 6.2% for women without gum disease. Caucasian women with gum disease also tended to take longer to conceive than those who were disease-free but the difference was not statistically significant (8.6% of Caucasian women with gum disease took over one year to conceive and 6.2% of women with gum disease).
Information on time to conception was available for 1,956 women, and of, these, 146 women took longer than 12 months to conceive -- an indicator of impaired fertility. They were more likely to be older, non-Caucasian, to smoke and to have a body mass index over 25 kg/m2. Out of the 3416 women, 1014 (26%) had periodontal disease.
Prof Hart said: "Our data suggest that the presence of periodontal disease is a modifiable risk factor, which can increase a woman's time to conception, particularly for non-Caucasians. It exerts a negative influence on fertility that is of the same order of magnitude as obesity. This study also confirms other, known negative influences upon time to conception for a woman; these include being over 35 years of age, being overweight or obese, and being a smoker. There was no correlation between the time it took to become pregnant and the socio-economic status of the woman.
"All women about to plan for a family should be encouraged to see their general practitioner to ensure that they are as healthy as possible before trying to conceive and so that they can be given appropriate lifestyle advice with respect to weight loss, diet and assistance with stopping smoking and drinking, plus the commencement of folic acid supplements. Additionally, it now appears that all women should also be encouraged to see their dentist to have any gum disease treated before trying to conceive. It is easily treated, usually involving no more than four dental visits.
"The SMILE study was one of the three largest randomised controlled trials performed in Western Australia. It showed conclusively that although treatment of periodontal disease does not prevent pre-term birth in any ethnic group, the treatment itself does not have any harmful effect on the mother or fetus during pregnancy."
Prof Hart said that the reason why pregnancies in non-Caucasian women were more affected by gum disease could be because these women appeared to have a higher level of inflammatory response to the condition.
and....How Fast Is Your Biological Clock Ticking?
Submitted by Bilyana Petrinska on 2011, August 10
It won’t be long before science is able to accurately predict the duration of a woman’s fertility. Experts from the Universities of St. Andrews, Edinburgh and Glasgow, carried out a survey of healthy women, which revealed the normal range of the levels of the anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) considered most vital for a woman’s fertility. in relation to age.
The findings of the study will prove helpful for younger women in finding out whether they are in for an early or late menopause, including the duration of their fertility.
The AMH hormone by reflecting the activity of a woman’s ovaries during her lifetime, provides an estimate of her remaining egg supply.
Researchers in a bid to find out the average levels of the AMH hormone looked at 3,200 samples from healthy girls and women. Fertility experts will now be able to tell how AMH hormone levels compare with the average age of a woman.
According to Tom Kelsey, who teaches at the School of Computer Science at St. Andrews, despite knowing high AMH levels were necessary for conception, there was no statistical backing, which the current study has now provided.
Scientists already knew that when AMH hormone levels fell below a certain level, the infertility treatment in vitro fertilization (IVF) became less successful. The new findings by offering a benchmark will prove helpful in providing a more accurate prediction of a successful IVF outcome.
According to Richard Anderson, Professor of Reproductive Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, assessment of AMH is already being widely used in IVF treatment.
The findings of this survey it is hoped will prove helpful in developing test for predicting the reproductive life span of a woman. AMH hormone levels are measured via blood tests, however researchers are also investigating the possibility of determining the levels of this hormone via urine.0 -
Bump to read later. Thank you for the information!0
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very interesting topic....i recently just hit 20% BF, started at around 27%. I don't plan on going any lower than this as I am pretty happy in my skin right now. I am wondering though, if I am on the pill, would I even notice any irregularities in my menstrual cycle? How am I supposed to know if my current BF % is too low for me? Is there seomthing I should be testing (some kind of blood analysis or something)?0
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Yeah, I want to drop body fat but never so low that I couldn't easily get pregnant tomorrow if I wanted to. I haven't had my bf% tested by calipers or anything. When I plug in numbers I get 30% or so which is probably fairly close. I'd like to get under 25% and at that point I'll probably call it good. I feel pretty good about my body as it is, it could just use a few more small tweaks.0
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very interesting topic....i recently just hit 20% BF, started at around 27%. I don't plan on going any lower than this as I am pretty happy in my skin right now. I am wondering though, if I am on the pill, would I even notice any irregularities in my menstrual cycle? How am I supposed to know if my current BF % is too low for me? Is there seomthing I should be testing (some kind of blood analysis or something)?
If you're on the pill you wouldn't notice. You'd have a withdrawal bleed every month and it can distort the reality of how your sex hormones are actually responding to your weight/bf%.0 -
This alternative hypothesis may also tell us something profound about the relationship between nutrition and fertility. This shouldn’t surprise us because as we discussed earlier, reproductive biologists have long considered the availability of food to be the most important environmental factor in fertility and reproduction. By this hypothesis, the critical variable in fertility is not body fat, as is commonly believed, but the immediate availability of metabolic fuels.
In the late 1980s, George Wade and Jill Schneider described their research on hamsters, chosen because of the clockwork four-day estrous cycles. The experiments were remarkably consistent. These animals go into heat whether they are fat or lean and they continue to cycle as long as they eat as much food as they want. If both fatty-acid and glucose oxidation are inhibited, and they are not allowed to increase their food intake in response, their estrous cycles stop. They remain infertile whether they are gaining or losing weight at the time. These animals are responding to the general availability of metabolic fuels. The same observation was made about pigs, sheep, and cattle. Monkeys will shut down their secretion of the hormone that triggers ovulation if they go twenty-four hours without food, but they’ll re-establish secretion immediately upon eating. The more the monkeys are allowed to eat, the more hormones they’ll secrete.
If fertility is determined by the availability of metabolic fuels as Wade And Schneider explained, then it “would be expected that ovulatory cycles would be inhibited by treatments that direct circulating metabolic fuels away from oxidation and into storage in fat tissue.” This is what insulin does, of course, and infusing insulin into animals will shut down their reproductive cycles. In hamsters, insulin infusion “totally blocks” estrous cycles unless the animals are allowed to substantially increase their normal food intake to compensate. This hypothesis can also explain the infertility associated with obesity in both humans and lab animals. If “an excessive portion of available calories” is locked away in fat tissue, then the animal will act as if it’s starving. In such a situation, Wade And Schneider said, “there will be insufficient calories to support both the reproductive and the other physiological processes essential for survival and reproductive activity shuts down until more food is available to compensate.”
This metabolic-fuel hypothesis of fertility has escaped the attention of clinicians. The clear implication is that a woman struggling with infertility or amenorrehea (the suppression of menstruation) will benefit more from a diet that lowers insulin but still provides considerable calories, a low carbohydrate, high fat diet, and thus repartitions the fuel consumed so that more is available for oxidation and less is placed in storage.0 -
Thanks for posting this. I have been interested in this topic because I'm at the point where I really want to get leaner for aesthetics, and to feel more comfortable, but on the other hand I don't want to because of fertility issues. Thanks for the reminder. :flowerforyou:0
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Bump
Thanks OP0
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