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Contributing to improved quantity and quality of research with female participants: Lessons learned from cardiovascular research in female athletes

Logistical concerns in accounting for sex hormones have commonly been used as justification for excluding female participants in physiological research. When researchers do include female participants, hormonal contraceptive users are often excluded, as the physiological effects of exogenous hormones present as a potential confounding variable to their results. Those without a typical menstrual cycle are also avoided for similar reasons. As such, we are not only limited on female data in health and sports science research, but the data we do have is concentrated on participants with a specific hormonal profile. In this presentation, I will share my experience working with female participants of varying hormonal profiles, addressing the problems we faced and solutions we came to in the process.