Attention, female runners! Shrinking too much raises chances of stress fracture

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New Delhi: A recent study conducted by US researchers says that female runners who are underweight might run faster but carry more risk of developing stress fracture.

The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Centre study found that female runners who have a body mass index (BMI) of less than 19 are at a higher risk of developing stress fractures than women with a BMI of 19 or higher.

It also found that lighter women who suffered stress fractures took longer to recover from them than other runners.

"We found that over time, we were able to identify the factors that put female runners at an increased risk of developing a stress fracture," said researcher Timothy Miller.

"One of the most important factors we identified was low body weight, or low body mass index.

"Miller said runners endure repetitive pounding on hard surfaces and, without enough lean muscle mass for dissipation of impact forces, the bones of the legs are vulnerable.

"When body mass index is very low and muscle mass is depleted, there is nowhere for the shock of running to be absorbed other than directly into the bones.

Until some muscle mass is developed and BMI is optimized, runners remain at increased risk of developing a stress fracture," Miller noted.For three years, Miller and his team looked at injuries in dozens of Division I college athletes using the Kaeding-Miller classification system, which he developed with another sports medicine expert at Ohio State.

This system is unique in that it characterizes injuries on a scale of 1 to 5, taking into consideration not only the patient`s symptoms, but also x-ray results, bone scan and computed tomography (CT) images, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings.

(With ANI inputs)