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The Acute Effects of Exercise on Prolactin and Growth Hormone Secretion: Comparison between Sedentary Women and Women Runners with Normal and Abnormal Menstrual Cycles^*

Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Medicine, University Hospitals Columbus, Ohio 43210

Address requests for reprints to: William B. Malarkey, M.D., 1106 Doan Hall, University Hospitals, 410 West 10th Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43210.

Acute exercise may stimulate PRL secretion, which, in turn, may contribute to exercise-associated menstrual dysfunction. We compared the response of PRL secretion in sedentary women and women runners with normal and abnormal menstrual cycles. We also studied the GH response to acute exercise, as GH may bind to lactogenic receptors. Five nonrunning women, 5 eumenorrheic running women, four oligomenorrheic running women, and six amenorrheic running women were studied on 2 consecutive days. On day 1, the women cycled on a bicycle ergometer against an increasing workload until total exhaustion. Serum PRL and GH increased several-fold in response to acute exercise in all three groups of running women. On day 2, the women simulated a daily training run by enduring a designed submaximal exercise regimen. In response to submaximal exercise, no group had a significant elevation of PRL or GH. Therefore, a threshold of exercise intensity exists that must be achieved before a significant increase in PRL or GH secretion occurs in women runners; serum PRL and GH in the nonrunning group did not increase significantly even in response to acute maximal exercise. The transient elevations in PRL and GH in women runners probably do not contribute to their menstrual dysfunction unless individual hypersensitivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis to such intermittent elevations is present.

^* This work was supported in part by NIH Grants R01-CA-33213, CA-16058, and RR-34 from the General Clinical Research Center.

Received May 21, 1985.

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