This one if for my fellow women – sorry guys! Part 1

Around half of all women will get cystitis or some other unirary tract infection (UTI) at somepoint in their life.  The female anatomy makes women more susceptible.  Having had cystitis many years ago I can vouch for the pain.  As some women are prone to suffer multiple episodes, I wanted to share some natural options to help them stop coming back.

Cranberry Juice

300-500ml of unsweetened cranberry juice or 400mg of concentrated cranberry extract twice a day appears to be sucessful is preventing or reducing the number of urinary tract infections (UTI).  However, there is limited evidence that cranberry can stop a UTI once you have it.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture was put to the test against sham acupuncture (the needles go into the wrong place or inserted in the wrong way) or no treatment for UTI prevention.  After six months 85% of those who had genuine acupuncture sufferend no UTIs compared with 58% of those of the sham group and 36% of the untreated group.  In another study UTI-prone women receiving acupuncture twice a week had half the rate of infections compared to those receiving no treatment.

 

References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27251185

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9612877

https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/12721123

Related Posts

  • Natrual Ways to Reduce Anxiety – Part 1

    Anxiety is very comman and from time to time its perfectly natural.  However when it becomes excessive then its time to do something about it.  There are several types of anxiety

    • General anxiety disorder
    • Panic attacks or panic disorder
    • Phobias
    • Obsesive compulsive disorders
    Cognitive Behavioural therapy, a form of counscelling is on one of the most effective long term treatments for anxiety-related disorders. Over the next few blog articles I want to share some natural ways that may help. Passionflower (Passiflora Incarnata), a herb has been used for centuries as a mind calmer and mood boster.  There is strong evidence it is effective and in one study it was just as effective as the anti-anxiety drug, oxazepam for generalised anxiety. Reference https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20929532 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11679026

  • Is slouching that bad for you? – part 3

    Modern man is born to slouch.  But he rarely considers the long term potential consequences:

    In addition it may also make you... Sad and Shy A study of 110 students by San Francisco State University last year found those who walked with a slouched body posture reported feeling more depressed and having lower energy levels than those who were more upright. Study leader Erik Peper, a professor of health education at the university, says sitting or standing up straight with shoulders back does not just give other people a good impression, but also sends a message to the brain that makes us feel better about ourselves. ‘We tend to think the brain and body relationship goes one way. In fact, the passages go both ways. ‘When you choose to put your body in a different mode, it’s harder to drop into depression.’ Meanwhile, in a 2007 study at Colorado College, students with the best sitting posture felt more confident — and scored significantly higher on tests — than those who sat slumped. Interestingly, though, the trend was only true for male students. Women felt more confident if they’d slouched, possibly because men tend to determine how they feel according to internal cues, while women think more about how they look to others — for them an upright posture made them feel pressured and self-conscious. So sit up straight!

  • A light bulb moment

    As someone who from time to time stuggles to digest wheat or more specifically gluten which in the past has created holes in my intestine walls (leaky gut syndrome), I was interested in a recent piece of research. Like a lot of people if I eat too much wheat or gluten then I start to bloat and get digestive issues.  Researches have discovered that the reaction that some people have could be caused by fructans (the sugars in wheat, barley and rye).  The researchers from Monash University (in Austrialia) suspected that the sugar cold be the real cuplrit because people with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) still have some of the symptoms even after following a strict gluten free diet. In a 2013 research project, they noticed that the symptoms of people with gluten intolerance didn't change whether they ate food that was rich in gluten or not. They took 59 people with gluten intolerance and gaven them a different cereal bar to eat each week.  Although the bars all looked the same, one contained gluten, another fructans and the third had neither ingreditant.  The fructands bar increased bloating by 15% and gastrointestinal propblems by 13% and neither the gluten bar nor the one without either ingreditant had any effect. If frutans are the real problem then people with a gluten intollerance could use soy sauce as its low in sugars. While this research is interesting.  For me its a bit of a light bulb moment.  The reason is that I find that I can eat organic sourdough bread and I tollerate this much more.  Organic sourdough bread has gluten but due to the backing process it sis very low in fructans. Reference http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(17)36302-3/abstract