By Dr Patricia Doyle‑Baker
Dr Patricia Doyle‑Baker is a sport scientist and public health researcher working predominantly in women’s health. Dr Doyle-Baker studies how hormonal transitions—from the menstrual cycle through menopause—interact with exercise, cardiovascular and bone health, and with a specific focus on female athletes’ quality of life.
Alongside her research, Dr. Doyle-Baker plays an important role in advancing the discipline as a Board Member for Physiological Reports, our peer-reviewed, open access journal that publishes across all areas of basic and translational physiology and allied disciplines.
As part of our 150 Voices of Physiology series, we spoke to Dr. Patricia Doyle‑Baker about her career, the importance of menstrual cycle research, and her hopes for the future of physiology.
What first inspired you to go into your area of research focusing on menstrual cycles?
There were several moments early in my career that piqued my interest in the menstrual cycle, but one stands out clearly. In 1982, I asked my graduate supervisor if I could work with the women’s rowing team to study blood biomarkers associated with overtraining. He replied that it would be “too difficult” because we would have to account for the menstrual cycle. That response was both surprising and frustrating, and it was my first experience of exclusionary recruitment practices. As a result, I conducted my research with the men’s junior varsity team.
However, in the summer of 1983, I had the opportunity to work with the women’s lightweight rowing crew during a pivotal time, as the first national women’s lightweight crew was preparing for the 1984 World Rowing Championships in Montreal. During that period, I witnessed firsthand the athletes’ lived experiences—menstrual cramps, bloating, fluctuations in mood and energy—being hangry— and the day-to-day realities of training through these symptoms. This left a lasting impression.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, there were limited funding opportunities and little appetite for pursuing research in this area. However, the idea stayed with me. In 2001, I received funding to study high-performance women’s ice hockey players in the context of the Female Athlete Triad (Doyle-Baker et al., 2017). We followed athletes over nine months alongside a control group, collecting data on menstrual cycles, body composition, bone mineral density, physical activity, dietary intake, and disordered eating risk. This seems like a lifetime ago before we began working with digital tracking tools (Kazakoff et al., 2026). We had participants calendar count, record their temperatures (BBT), and complete a menstrual diary of symptoms. Based on the mean temperature method, we observed approximately 50 % of the HP’s and 43% of the control group’s eligible cycles were defined as anovulatory—findings that were striking at the time.
A defining moment came years later, in December 2018, while I was serving as a start referee at a women’s NorAm alpine skiing event in Lake Louise. It was −24°C (very cold) and an athlete approached me just before her run and asked if I had a tampon. I didn’t—and neither did the first aid kit or nearby coaches. Watching her distress in that moment, knowing what was at stake for her performance, made the issue feel immediate and tangible in a new way. That experience solidified my decision to fully commit to advancing research in female reproductive health and the menstrual cycle in sport.
Is there a project or piece of work you can share that you are most proud of?
I am particularly proud of the work led by my current PhD students, which reflects both methodological innovation and real-world application. One project focuses on validating at-home urinary hormone monitoring for prospective menstrual cycle assessment in a clinical setting. In parallel with this work, we have used ultrasound to track corpus luteum formation to more precisely identify the day of ovulation. In one instance, ovulation was captured in real time on ultrasound—so very cool—and a powerful teaching tool that allows students to directly observe the collapse of the dominant follicle and better understand ovulatory physiology (Bouchard et al., 2026).
The second project extends this work into the field, where we are collecting salivary ovarian hormone profiles in elite Canadian female athletes alongside performance metrics. A long-standing goal of mine has been to demonstrate that menstrual cycles often do not follow the assumed “textbook” patterns of estradiol and progesterone fluctuations. Our data clearly show substantial inter- and intra-individual variability. I always wanted to say that no two cycles are alike, and we have a lot of cycles to show this now.
Together, this work integrates endocrinology, physiology, and athlete monitoring to better understand subclinical menstrual disturbances. Importantly, it helps move the conversation beyond overt clinical conditions such as amenorrhea toward recognizing more subtle disruptions in menstrual function that may still have meaningful implications for performance and long-term health.
I am also proud of how this research has contributed to shifting practices. Our work now incorporates technology and uses collected metrics to assist individuals with making decisions about their reproductive health. We have moved beyond biology alone—not just the physical load—to include the psychosocial demands and emphasize individualization. Importantly, we encourage coaches, practitioners, and researchers to view menstrual health as a key part of athlete monitoring, rather than a complicating factor to be avoided (Van den Berg et al., 2025).
What impact has being part of The Society’s journal Board had on your career?
Serving on the Society’s journal Board has had a meaningful impact on my career, particularly in shaping how I approach scientific communication and peer review. It has provided valuable insight into the editorial process—what strengthens a manuscript, common pitfalls to avoid, and how decisions are made.
This experience has made me a more thoughtful reviewer and a more strategic author. It has also broadened my perspective on the field of physiology, exposing me to diverse areas of research and emerging methodologies. Importantly, it has reinforced the responsibility we have as scientists to ensure rigor, clarity, and inclusivity in the work we publish.
One area where this influence has been particularly strong is in the use of scoping and systematic reviews to move the field forward. While often viewed as tedious, I have come to appreciate these approaches as essential for identifying meaningful gaps in the literature and strengthening the rationale for future studies—something I did not fully recognize during my own MSc training.
As a result, all my graduate students now begin their work with a scoping review. This deliberate shift allows us to map existing evidence, highlight inconsistencies, and clearly define where new data are needed. In a field such as female athlete physiology—where knowledge has historically been fragmented—this approach is especially valuable. Several recent student-led projects reflect this (e.g., Boisvert et al., 2024; Doroshuk et al., 2025; Kazakoff et al., 2025; Vangsgaard et al., 2026), and these reviews have directly informed the design of subsequent empirical studies in our lab.
Where do you hope to see the field of physiology — and the Society — 50 years from now?
In 50 years, I hope to see physiology fully embrace human diversity as a fundamental component of scientific inquiry, rather than a variable to control or exclude. This includes the routine and rigorous integration of female physiology—across the lifespan and across performance levels—into both research and practice.
I also hope the menstrual cycle is widely recognized as a vital sign, with its assessment integrated into both clinical and performance settings. More broadly, I would like to see ovulatory physiology appreciated with the same level of interest and importance as other well-studied systems, such as vascular function in cardiovascular disease. There is still much to learn, and significant opportunity for discovery. If only I were 20 years younger.
References
Bouchard, T., Bedaiwy, M., Talhouk, A ., Nakhudaa, G., Yonga, P.J., Doyle-Baker, P.K. (2026). Validating ovulation prediction and confirmation with the Mira monitor: blinded ultrasound and serum hormone comparison. Reproductive BioMedicine Online, 53(5): 105881.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2026.105881
Doyle-Baker, P. K., McLean, L. P., & Fung, T. (2018). Female Athlete Triad – Probable But Difficult To Confirm In Female Ice Hockey Players. Annales Kinesiologiae, 8(2), 69–92. https://doi.org/10.35469/ak.2017.153
Kazakoff, A., and Doyle-Baker, P.K. (2026). Exploring engagement patterns in a reproductive health app using the Technology Acceptance Model. Front. Reprod. Health 8:1904798. doi.org/10.3389/frph.2026.1904798
van den Berg, C.A., and Doyle-Baker, P.K. (2025). Are we asking the right questions? Female athletes’ perspectives on the menstrual cycle in sport. Psychol Sport Exerc. 76:102767. doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2024.102767