We’re exploring the intersection of elite athletics and women's health with author and former professional soccer player Georgia Cloepfil and Mayo Clinic women's health expert Dr. Chrisandra Shufelt. Using Georgia’s book The Striker and the Clock: On Being in the Game as our lens, we delve into the emotional and physical toll of high-level sports, particularly the underrecognized condition of functional hypothalamic amenorrhea (FHA), a type of absence of menstruation. We discuss the cultural silence around menstruation in sports, the physiological consequences of FHA, and the need for more research, awareness and support for women navigating intense physical demands in both sports and professional life.

This episode was made possible with the generous support of Ken Stevens.

We talked with:

• Georgia Cloepfil’s writing can be found in The Yale Review, The New York Times Magazine, and The Washington Post, among other places. Select essays have been featured on Longreads, The Rumpus, and WBUR Boston’s Only a Game. She holds an MFA from the University of Idaho and works at Whitman College. The Striker and the Clock is her nonfiction debut.
• Chrisandra Shufelt, M.D., M.S., is Professor and Chair of the Division of General Internal Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, and Associate Director of the Women's Health Research Center for Mayo Clinic Enterprise. Dr. Shufelt is a women's health internist with fellowship training in vascular biology and women's health and a certified menopause practitioner.

Purchase “The Striker and the Clock.”

• From Barnes & Noble.
• From Amazon.
• From Bookshop.org.

To learn more about Dr. Shufelt’s studies:

• ARCH: https://noperiod.info/arch
• REVEAL: http://noperiod.info/reveal

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The podcast is for informational purposes only and is not designed to replace the physician’s medical assessment and judgment. Information presented is not intended as medical advice. Please contact a healthcare professional medical assistance with specific questions pertaining to your own health if needed.