“Females, due to the loss of menstrual blood each month are at a higher risk for iron deficiency than men (in this vein it’s interesting to note that women are more likely to have thyroid problems, I have to wonder if these two issues aren’t related) and females (especially athletes) along with vegetarians are likely to be iron deficient. This is especially true for female athletes who have a habit of removing red meat out of their diet. That, along with possibly increased requirements from training, along with slight blood losses each month add up to iron deficiency.”

Even if you seemed to have missed everything after the first sentence.

Therefore, most iron anemia in young women is dietary. In female athletes, it would be both exercise-induced loses and diet.

Re calcium, exercise sweat losses run about a gram/day. Remember the RDA/DRI are age and gender based averages. They are not normed on athletes. See Lappe.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/35561337/HealthPerformMilWomenCBT1995

http://www.scribd.com/doc/35560621/Calcium-Vitamin-D-and-Stress-Fracture

http://www.scribd.com/doc/35597577/McClung-AJCN-09

http://www.scribd.com/doc/35597624/McClung-J-Am-Coll-Nutr-2006

http://www.scribd.com/doc/36060762/Beef-Exercise

http://www.scribd.com/doc/36060836/Iron-Status-Exercising-Women-1991

http://www.scribd.com/doc/36060900/GIT-Blood-Loss

The body is usually pretty good at maintaining calcium levels in certain tissues, although deficiencies tend to mean that it gets pulled out of others. I imagine it would take a rather massive calcium deficiency to cause this kind of problem.

Lyle

I was learining about the sarcoplasmic reticulum in class and how it stores calcium then releases it during a muscle contraction to move the troponin. (I think thats what happens) So if someone had a calcium deficiency would they have a hard time contracting their muscles? Because I dont really hear anything about bodybuilders taking calcium supplements to build muscle.

Lyle

Lyle