Inequalities in the Evaluation of Male Versus Female Athletes in Sports Medicine Research: A Systematic Review

Paul, Ryan W.; Sonnier, John Hayden; Johnson, Emma E.; Hall, Anya; Osman, Alim; Connors, Gregory M; Freedman, Kevin B.; Bishop, Meghan E.

doi:10.1177/03635465221131281

Cited by 28 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(38 reference statements)

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“…Our findings that few studies included females or evaluated sex differences are well supported by prior literature demonstrating inequalities in research conducted on female versus male athletes 61. While some sports (eg, American football) are not widely practiced among both sexes, including both males and females in studies and evaluating sex differences when possible is essential and may have substantial clinical implications.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Long-term function, body composition and cardiometabolic health in midlife former athletes: a scoping review

Street,

Boos,

Fial

et al. 2023

BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med

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While sports medicine has traditionally focused on recovering from injury and returning athletes to sport safely after injury, there is a growing interest in the long-term health of athletes. The purpose of this scoping review was to (1) summarise the literature (methodologies and findings) on physical function, body composition and cardiometabolic health in midlife (age 40–65 years) former competitive athletes compared with non-athlete controls, (2) identify areas for future study in long-term health in athletes and (3) determine outcomes that could be evaluated in a future systematic review(s). We searched PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science and SPORTDiscus for studies published between 2000 and 2022 evaluating former athletes and controls on physical function, body composition and/or cardiometabolic measures using MeSH terms. We identified 20 articles that met our criteria. Outcomes varied considerably across studies, most of which were cross-sectional and evaluated only males. Limited data suggest that former endurance athletes have leaner body compositions, higher aerobic capacity and better cardiometabolic indicators than controls; former athletes who maintain higher physical activity (ie, self-reported exercise) are healthier than those who do not; and former team sport athletes, who have higher injury prevalence, may have poorer functional performance than controls who were recreationally active in college. Studies rarely evaluated functional performance, did not control for prior injury or diet and seldom assessed current physical activity levels. Future research should include females and evaluate sex differences, control for prior sports-related injury(ies), quantify physical activity, use standardised outcome measures including performance-based functional assessments and incorporate longitudinal designs.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Long-term function, body composition and cardiometabolic health in midlife former athletes: a scoping review

Street,

Boos,

Fial

et al. 2023

BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med

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“…The impacts of COVID-19 have been far and wide, and have been felt more by women and girls in most industries. Sport has not been spared with girls dropping out of sport at higher rates than boys 1 and women and non-binary individuals being under-represented in broadcasting, 2 management 3 and sport science 4 (although we know those are not new issues! ).…”

Section: Narrowing the Gap: How To Increase Female Representation In ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrowing the gap

Renaud

Napier

2023

Br J Sports Med

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“…On this note, a recent publication demonstrated that from 669 studies published between 2017 and 2021 in six major sports medicine journals, only ca. 30% of studies included females as participants alongside males 141 . In addition, only ca.…”

Section: Future Considerations For Ms In Sesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mass Sportrometry: An annual look back at applications of mass spectrometry in sport and exercise science

Ong

Green

Rowland

et al. 2023

Analytical Science Advances

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Research in sport and exercise science (SES) is reliant on robust analyses of biomarker measurements to assist with the interpretation of physiological outcomes. Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical approach capable of highly sensitive, specific, precise, and accurate analyses of a range of biomolecules, many of which are of interest in SES including, but not limited to, endogenous metabolites, exogenously administered compounds (e.g. supplements), mineral ions, and circulating/tissue proteins. This annual review provides a summary of the applications of MS across studies investigating aspects related to sport or exercise in manuscripts published, or currently in press, in 2022. In total, 93 publications are included and categorized according to their methodologies including targeted analyses, metabolomics, lipidomics, proteomics, and isotope ratio/elemental MS. The advantageous analytical opportunities afforded by MS technologies are discussed across a selection of relevant articles. In addition, considerations for the future of MS in SES, including the need to improve the reporting of assay characteristics and validation data, are discussed, alongside the recommendation for selected current methods to be superseded by MS‐based approaches where appropriate. The review identifies that a targeted, mostly quantitative, approach is the most commonly applied MS approach within SES, although there has also been a keen interest in the use of ‘omics’ to perform hypothesis‐generating research studies. Nonetheless, MS is not commonplace in SES at this time, but its use to expand, and possibly improve, the analytical options should be continually considered to exploit the benefits of analytical chemistry in exercise/sports‐based research. Overall, it is exciting to see the gradually increasing adoption of MS in SES and it is expected that the number, and quality, of MS‐based assays in SES will increase over time, with the potential for 2023 to further establish this technique within the field.

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Inequalities in the Evaluation of Male Versus Female Athletes in Sports Medicine Research: A Systematic Review

Cited by 28 publications

References 26 publications

Long-term function, body composition and cardiometabolic health in midlife former athletes: a scoping review

Long-term function, body composition and cardiometabolic health in midlife former athletes: a scoping review

Narrowing the gap

Mass Sportrometry: An annual look back at applications of mass spectrometry in sport and exercise science

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