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The effect of oral contraceptive use on salivary testosterone concentrations and athlete performance during international field hockey matches

Blair T. Crewther Orcid Logo, David Hamilton, Liam Kilduff Orcid Logo, Scott Drawer, Christian Cook

Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Volume: 21, Issue: 5, Pages: 453 - 456

Swansea University Authors: Liam Kilduff Orcid Logo, Scott Drawer, Christian Cook

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Abstract

Objectives: To investigate the effect of oral contraceptive (OC) use on salivary testosterone (sal-T) concentrations and performance-related statistics in international field hockey matches.Design: A cohort observational study with repeated measures.Methods: Twenty-three elite female athletes were m...

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Published in: Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport
ISSN: 1440-2440
Published: Elsevier BV 2018
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa35475
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Abstract: Objectives: To investigate the effect of oral contraceptive (OC) use on salivary testosterone (sal-T) concentrations and performance-related statistics in international field hockey matches.Design: A cohort observational study with repeated measures.Methods: Twenty-three elite female athletes were monitored across four international field hockey matches over a nine-day period. Salivary T was assessed 45min before each match and several match performance statistics were collated; load (i.e. ratings of perceived exertion×playing time), video-derived positive actions (PA) and negative actions (NA), plus coach and player ratings of performance. The sal-T and match performance profiles of OC (n=7) and Non-OC (n=16) players were compared and predictive relationships tested.Results: Pre-match sal-T concentrations were 35% higher in the Non-OC than the OC group (p=0.001), representing a large effect size (ES) difference of 0.96. The OC and Non-OC groups did not differ on any performance statistic (p≥0.348) with ES differences from -0.22 to 0.11. Salivary T was positively related to the number of PA during match play (p=0.017). Additional linkage between sal-T and NA emerged, but with opposing slopes (p=0.008) in the OC (B=-1.783, p=0.030) and Non-OC (B=0.692, p=0.127) groups.Conclusions: OC usage by elite women athletes was accompanied by lower sal-T concentrations, but the performance outputs of the OC and Non-OC groups were similar. This suggests that the T differences had no impact on match performance. On an individual (population-averaged) level, sal-T was associated with PA and NA during these matches, though the response curves predicting NA differed for OC and Non-OC athletes.
Keywords: Adaptive, Adrenal, Androgen, Neuroendocrine, Sport
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Issue: 5
Start Page: 453
End Page: 456